


end of the day

by kirkaut



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, First Time, Fluff, Get Together, M/M, Missing Scene, Porn with Feelings, Rimming, episode 6 onward, google translate for my sins, missing moments in canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-09-25 23:30:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9851876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirkaut/pseuds/kirkaut
Summary: Victor is naked.Very, very naked.Yuuri doesn’t know what it says about the current state of his life that this fact alone is no longer shocking to him.-A collection of missing scenes from canon, from episode six onwards.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> This fic began as an excuse to write drunken Victor insisting that Yuuri trade pants with him in episode 6, and somehow spiraled out of control and turned into missing moments in the series. It goes through episode twelve and beyond and is full of romantic garbage and fluff and smut.
> 
> Please note I don't know a word of Russian and used Google Translate which I realize is never a good idea so for the love of God if anyone who speaks Russian reads this please correct me if Google and I butchered everything horribly.

Victor is naked.

Very, very naked.

Yuuri doesn’t know what it says about the current state of his life that this fact alone is no longer shocking to him. He still blushes violently and does his best to keep his gaze from lingering, but given Victor’s enthusiasm for the hot springs, Yuuri wouldn’t be surprised to find that he’s spent just as much time around Victor when he’s nude as he has fully clothed.

The problem right now is that Victor is so incredibly naked, and they are in  _ public. _

The servers at the hot pot restaurant are doing their best to provide their dining area a bit of privacy, but Yuuri can see their shrewd and disapproving looks every time one passes and gets an eyeful of Victor’s...well, of  _ Victor. _

The man in question is a sinewy line of warmth draped against Yuuri’s back, flushed and overly affectionate, nuzzling into the nape of his neck and slurring drunkenly in an unintelligible mash of English and Russian. He’s got one hand dipping into the collar of Yuuri’s jacket, into his shirt, fingertips nudging into the sharp edge of his collarbone, and the other doing it’s best to creep inside from the other end, palm skimming against Yuuri’s stomach.

Leo and Guang-Hong have crowded into the other side of the booth next to Phichit, the three of them huddling together and clutching tightly at their cell phones. Phichit seems to be the most at ease, alternating between using Celestino’s slumped form as a cushion and leaning across Guang-Hong to show Leo new pictures of his dog. The two younger skaters still appear jittery, struggling to uphold conversation as their wide-eyed gazes fight not to linger too obviously on Victor’s drunk and nude monopolization of Yuuri’s person.

“Yuuri,” Victor says into his ear, voice sing-song and lilting. His lips skim up the line of Yuuri’s neck, nose bumping into his earlobe. “ _ Yuu-uuuuri! _ I want some tea, can you ask your mother to bring us some?”

“Victor,” Yuuri sighs, fighting down the shiver building low in the base of his spine as the other man continues to bump his lips into the space behind his ear - not kissing, but something thrilling nonetheless. “We’re in China. My mother isn’t in the hot pot restaurant with us. We could ask the server, though.”

“But  _ Yuuri _ ,” Victor whines, tightening his arms around him. His fingernails scrape gently against the soft skin of Yuuri’s stomach, and all of the muscles underneath contract. “I want your mother’s tea! She always makes it exactly as I like it.”

“What are you two whispering about so intimately?” Phichit demands from the other side of the table. He’s looking at them with warmth and amusement, a glint in his eyes that says quite clearly that he’s poking fun at Yuuri. He had always teased Yuuri about his infatuation with Victor, and Yuuri experiences a brief sensation of doom when he realizes that, after tonight, Phichit is going to be utterly relentless. “Maybe you should think about moving to your hotel and, y’know... _ getting a room. _ ”

Yuuri rolls his eyes and shoots Phichit the best glare he can manage from beneath Victor’s smothering affection. It’s not a bad idea, though; Victor is starting to murmur almost exclusively in Russian, voice syrupy and slow like he’s close to dropping off into sleep. The only word Yuuri can understand is the occasional sound of his own name, sweet and slurring and making his heart cinch tightly in his chest.

“Victor,” Yuuri says, reaching onto the table and pulling down the neat pile of Victor’s clothing. “You need to get dressed so we can go back to the hotel.”

“Nooo,” Victor says plaintively, clutching more tightly at him when Yuuri goes to pull away. He pouts firmly when Yuuri manages to extricate himself and shoves the pair of black skinny jeans into his arms. “I don’t want to wear these,” he says with distaste, giving them back unceremoniously. Yuuri doesn't even have time to form a grip on the pants before Victor is draping his arms around his neck and sinking one hand into his hair. His nails scratch against Yuuri’s scalp, and his lips become a messy smear against the flush of Yuuri’s cheek. 

Across the table, Guang-Hong chokes on his drink. Phichit crows with glee, lifting his phone, and takes picture after picture as Victor does his best to climb into Yuuri’s lap. 

“Stop that,” Yuuri says desperately, and doesn't know which one he's talking to. Both, probably. 

“Yuuri,” Victor says, “my Yuuri, so soft.” He runs a long-fingered hand up the expanse of Yuuri’s thigh, smoothing out the fabric of his soft cotton pants. “Can I wear your pants instead?”

Yuuri’s brain grinds to a halt. He blinks at Victor once, twice, before the question registers and his face explodes into a fierce blush. “No, you can't wear my pants!” he shouts, voice cracking. Phichit’s laughter is being poorly smothered across the table, and Leo makes a sound like he's been wounded. “ _ I'm  _ wearing my pants!”

“Trade with me, Yuuri,” Victor says, and peppers a series of kisses against the apple of his cheek. Yuuri feels a sensation throughout his entire body that he imagines isn't too dissimilar to short circuiting. “Please? And then we can go back to the hotel.”

Yuuri's heart is thundering in the middle of his throat, so he has no idea how he manages to choke out a “Fine!” before forcibly removing himself from Victor’s grasp. 

“Where are you going?” Victor simpers, scrabbling at Yuuri’s jacket with ineffectual hands. The alcohol has thickened his accent in a way that Yuuri would find comical if he wasn't too busy finding the messy drawl horribly endearing. He’s barely understandable, and only months at Victor’s side have given Yuuri an advantage in drunk-Victor speak.

“To the toilet,” Yuuri says, with a stern sort of resignation, gathering up the monstrously expensive clothing that is Victor’s discarded designer jeans, and holds them against his chest. “Because I am not taking my pants off in public. One of us needs to stay decent.”

Phichit boos loudly, phone still lifted up like he was fully anticipating a show and had every plans to document it. At Yuuri's quelling look, he locks his phone and lets it clatter to the tabletop. “My followers would like it if you didn’t stay decent,” he says, as if that's in any way enticing to Yuuri. 

“I would like it, too,” Victor slurs, hands closing in on Yuuri's hips. His face mashes into the part of Yuuri's stomach that stays stubbornly soft no matter how trim the rest of him may be. A slew of Russian sounding words are lost to the cotton fabric of his tee. Yuuri allows himself a rare moment of indulgence and smooths a hand over the soft shorthairs above the nape of Victor's neck, and Victor rolls into the motion, forehead rubbing against Yuuri’s stomach and his fringe becoming a completely disheveled mess. “But not for anyone else,” he says, lifting his head into an uncomfortable looking angle, the sharp jut of his chin settling into a spot near Yuuri’s left hipbone. “ты мой Yuuri. Я не хочу чтобы они видели.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Yuuri reminds him gently, and pats him consolingly on the crown of his head when Victor groans and tries to smother himself in his stomach once more. Very carefully, mindful of the grabby Russian muttering indecipherable pleas his way, Yuuri extricates himself from Victor’s grasp and makes a break for the restroom. It’s not too far of a walk from their table, and before the bathroom door is shut, he can hear Phichit loudly ask, tone obnoxious and paternal, “What are your intentions with Yuuri?”

Yuuri swears under his breath and lets the door close behind him, and hastily shuts himself away in one of the stalls. His shoes slip off of his feet easily, laces loose from a day’s wear, and they’re pushed off to the side. He pulls his shirt up, just enough to access the waistband of his pants, and pauses. Yuuri takes a moment to skim his fingers across the soft spot on his stomach where he can still feel the pressure of Victor’s head, the spot near his hipbone where Victor’s chin had dug in. If he stretches his hand just so, he can touch both spots at once, so he does. He curls in on himself, another blush heating at his cheeks, and bites his lip.

“He’s just drunk,” he whispers to himself, nudging up his glasses with his other hand so that he can pinch at the bridge of his nose. “Get it together.”

He pulls his pants down, shoving them over the muscle of his thighs and down to his ankles, doing his best to ignore the way that his knees feel slightly weak, and folds them into a sloppy pile. He shakes out Victor’s jeans and, after a few moments of staring woefully at the length of them, begins the arduous process of putting them on. 

It’s an effort to pull the denim up his thighs, and more of one to actually cinch the button closed around his waist, and when all's said and done he can’t help but feel rather foolish as he stands there, wearing Victor’s pants and wondering how his life came to this. 

There’s too much fabric gathered from the knee down, because where Victor’s legs are long and lean and graceful, Yuuri’s are more stocky. The fabric is tight across his thighs and ass - more thickly muscled than Victor’s - and the waistband digs into his skin unpleasantly, flesh creeping out over the edges in all the places he’s still soft where Victor is trim. He pulls his shirt and jacket down over the subtle bulge of flesh, hurriedly shoves his feet into his shoes, and exits the bathroom, his own pants clutched tightly in his hands.

The walk back to the table isn’t a long one, but it’s long enough for him to be painfully aware of how tight the fabric of victor’s jeans are across his thighs, of the way they bite into his waist with every step, and how the range of motion in his hips feels restrained. He doesn’t know, honestly, how Victor can wear these things, much less pay hundreds of rubles for them.

He approaches the table as quickly as the restrictive fabric allows, stumbling once or twice along the way, and all but throws his pants into Victor’s face. “Here,” he says shortly, and drops down into the booth. “Now will you please get dressed, Victor? We should really get back to the hotel. We have an early start tomorrow.”

Victor’s out of focus gaze drops to the ball of cotton fabric in his lap. “Warm,” he mutters, hands curling around Yuuri’s pants like they’re something precious. He begins to list dangerously to one side, and when Yuuri wraps an arm around his bicep to keep him from tipping over completely, he turns his head and blinks owlishly into his face before Victor’s mouth breaks into a bright, genuine grin. “Yuuri! You’re back!”

“He missed you,” Phichit chimes in, shooting a smirk their way from above his phone. 

Victor begins nodding in large, sweeping arcs of his neck. “I missed you,” he agrees, and faceplants into Yuuri’s shoulder. “Я желаю тебе не будет идти туда, где я не могу следовать.”

Yuuri wishes for a singular, aching moment that he had stuck to his teenaged self’s resolve to learn Russian on the off-chance of one day meeting his idol. He’d never managed past basic conversational phrases, nor had he ever dared to imagine that one day, the aforementioned idol would be completely drunk and trying to sneak his fingertips into the non-existent space between his own pants and Yuuri’s skin. 

“Ты выглядишь так красиво в моей одежде,” he says, mouth open against Yuuri’s jacket. He feels the gentle press of teeth through the layers of fabric, and it takes all of his willpower to push Victor away. 

“Victor,” he says firmly. “You need to get dressed, or I’m going back to the hotel without you.”

He wouldn’t; he would  _ never  _ leave Victor like this, vulnerable and drunk and completely nude, and he’s certain the lie is apparent in his voice, if the way that even Guang-Hong rolls his eyes is any indication. Even still, Victor is sloshed enough not to notice, and his hazy blue eyes sharpen with panic as he scrambles to pull on the borrowed pants. His sweater follows, backwards and inside out, and attempts to shrug on his coat. The sleeves get caught around his elbows, he looks like a disaster, but -

_ But _ .

He’s flushed, the alcohol making him rosy and bright eyed, and he’s peering beseechingly at Yuuri from beneath his fringe. His long fingers curl their way around Yuuri’s forearm and tighten into an iron grip, like he’s trying to make sure Yuuri doesn’t leave without him. He’s so beautiful, so very  _ real _ , and Yuuri’s heart flips over in his chest. He’s still in awe of him - Victor’s a legend, he’s ethereal, and a complete genius - but moments like this, where Victor is sweating lightly and his hair is everywhere and one eye is blinking a touch slower than the other...in these moments, Yuuri  _ burns _ for him.

Ever since that heartfelt conversation on the beach in Hasetsu, with the waves curling gently towards the shore nearby and the cries of gulls overhead, Victor has let go of the facade of  _ Victor Nikiforov _ , though sometimes Yuuri can still catch him clinging to it by the fingertips. He’s softer these days, less fluid and practiced like he’s performing a routine. Yuuri has seen Victor with the creases of his pillow pressed into his cheek, has seen him with bits of food stuck to the corner of his mouth and his chin, has come across him with a headband pushing back his hair and a thick cream mask camouflaging his skin, and no matter the circumstances, Yuuri’s heart trips over itself with every brand new insight into who Victor truly is.

Now is no different, even when he’s confronted with a man who’s simultaneously pliable and clingy, made blurry by alcohol, and clutching at Yuuri like a limpet. Yuuri’s heart thunders as Victor’s hands settle around his waist, fingers pressing into his slight muffin top, and the rhythm of its tremendous beat sounds dangerously like Victor’s name. 

Yuuri takes a deep breath in through his nose and allows himself one wild moment of indulgence, and gently pushes the damp strands of Victor’s fringe off from where they’re sticking to his forehead. Victor’s face leans into the touch like he’s chasing Yuuri’s fingers, eyes flickering shut, and so beautiful it nearly hurts. “Victor,” Yuuri says, and allows his fingers to drift down the side of Victor’s face, over the cut of his jaw, only to settle his whole hand on Victor’s shoulder and give him a small shake. “We have a long day tomorrow. We need to get back to the hotel, remember? You promised.”

Victor groans and makes no motions to get out of the booth, so Yuuri begins the task of prying himself loose. He manages to do so, and even gets a few steps away from Victor in the process in the hopes that he can find another way to lure Victor back to the sanctuary of a hotel room, before Victor realizes that he’s gone. Victor - and there’s no other way to describe it - fairly  _ falls _ out of the booth once he realizes that Yuuri is no longer within his grasp, tripping over the expensive Italian leather shoes he’s got half-shoved onto his feet. He straightens himself up with a gasp and almost immediately lists off to one side, but Yuuri darts forward to catch him.

He slings one of Victor’s arms over his shoulders, and allows himself the privilege of curling his own hand against the dip in Victor’s waist. The two of them stumble their way out of the restaurant, Yuuri tossing farewells over his shoulder and trying desperately to ignore the sound of multiple phone cameras shuttering.

The cab ride back to the hotel is blessedly uneventful, save for Victor slumping into Yuuri more and more with every corner turned, but even so Yuuri nearly wilts with relief when the high rise and bright lights of the hotel come into eyesight. 

It’s no easy feat, wrangling one drunk and disheveled Russian through a crowded hotel lobby and herding him onto an elevator, but Victor complies as best as his impaired motor skills will allow, which has the unfortunate side effect of sending them careening into zig-zag lines as Yuuri drags them down the thickly carpeted halls towards their room.

If the sight of his own bed feels like a relief, then the sight of Victor’s feels like an actual  _ miracle _ , because Yuuri is, at his core, only a man, and there’s only so much affectionate whispering against his ear that he can take before he runs the risk of doing something very, very foolish. 

Victor flops back onto the bed as soon as Yuuri deposits him there, arms spread out against the mattress, and heaves a sigh. He mutters something in Russian under his breath - an indistinct but oddly familiar phrase, like Yuuri can tell just from the basic sound of it that it’s something Victor has said to him before.

**“Я тебя люблю.”**

He hasn’t found the courage to ask Victor what the words mean, but for all the times he’s heard Victor say them under his breath, he assumes it’s a swear of some kind.

Yuuri’s pants are too short on him, cutting off at an awkward height above his ankles; one sock is pulled tight and high while the other is missing completely. Victor is already snoring softly, drunk and asleep and half-dressed in Yuuri’s own clothes, and still he’s one of the most perfect things that Yuuri has ever seen.

He takes a deep breath and turns away.

He steps into the bathroom, stares at his own reflection above the sink, and wills his heart to settle.

  
  


**ooo**

  
  


Despite all signs that point towards the contrary, Yuuri actually enjoys physical affection. He knows he has a tendency to flinch away from touch, knows the impulse has firmly planted roots in his anxiety, but it's not as though he's completely averse to the concept. 

It's only that it's difficult, sometimes, to accept such casual gestures without worrying about any possible hidden motives. It's nonsensical, at best, to be so concerned with a simple pat on the back or a hand to his shoulder, but despite the knowledge that for the most part the touches are friendly, he just can't help but  _ worry.  _ The therapist he'd seen for a brief moment back in Detroit had assured him that these feelings of...of inadequacy, and the way he tended to sidestep casual intimacy were all rote when it came to his particular brand of anxiety, but truth be told that did little to put his mind at ease. 

It isn't as though he’s completely repulsed by touch, after all. He just needs an element of established trust, there, to let him ease into the hold and perhaps even return the gesture. He and Phichit had been roommates in Detroit, and it hadn't been so unusual for them to sprawl across one another on the couch in their apartment, or for Yuuri to come home from class and find his friend curled up in Yuuri’s own bed. 

Takeshi was more gruff, more heavy handed in his embraces, like he saw Yuuri as a younger brother and used hard hugs and slight jabs to tease. Yuuko’s touches had always held much of that same platonic, almost familial feel, which made his long-faded crush on her seem slightly more pathetic in hindsight. He was used to the feel of Minako’s hands pushing and pulling his limbs in various directions, her palms pressed against his stomach and his back in order to correct his posture, and the way she would flick his ear if she sensed his attention wavering. 

He and Mari had never been particularly affectionate, but his parents had doled out hugs in spades when they sensed he would be receptive to them, always quick to show Yuuri that they loved him and supported him, even if perhaps they didn't always  _ understand  _ him. 

But Victor...Victor is another story.

He'd come into Yuuri's life like a whirlwind of easy touches, overwhelming in their simplistic and seductive nature. He often lost himself to thoughts of the way Victor’s fingers felt, pressing into the soft underside of his chin; the way Victor's thumb had felt, skimming over the chapped and sensitive skin of his bottom lip; the tight grip and the weight of Victor's hand in his own as black tailed gulls cried out in the distance. 

Every touch from Victor somehow manages to feel both deliberate and thoughtless, as if there is no question about whether or not he could simply reach out and shake Yuuri's world apart with the simple brush of his hand. As though that's merely where Victor’s hands  _ belong _ , curled around Yuuri in one way or another. 

The nature of the intimacy in these touches has changed over the course of the last few months, much to Yuuri’s simultaneous relief and vexation. What had begun as an inexplicable but outright flirtation - the thumb on his lip, Victor’s face drifting in close to his own - had softened, become something less staged and over-thought. Victor never hesitates when he wants to reach out and touch Yuuri, but the gestures are almost careless nowadays; a hand laid gently on top of Yuuri’s arm when Victor wants his attention, his palm pressing into the small of Yuuri’s back as Victor guides him through an open door, the way Victor tends to crowd close against him and hook his chin onto Yuuri’s shoulder as they watch footage of practice and converse about possible improvements to the routine. 

While it was true that in the beginning Yuuri had shied away from those grand flirtations, he now finds himself leaning into every one of Victor’s touches in a way he’s never done with anyone before. Even in his close friendship with Phichit, Yuuri has rarely sought out his affection. But with Victor, he’s come to almost crave it.

It still takes him by surprise, sometimes - the way that Victor reaches for him as soon as Yuuri is in range, as though he feels that same pull that calls their bodies into orbit. The way that Victor's touches sometimes feel almost reverent, and there will be a flash of  _ something  _ in his eyes, like he can’t believe Yuuri is in front of him. 

But that was probably just wishful thinking, Yuuri tells himself. He very much doubts Victor has ever had those sort of wanting thoughts about him, no matter how much Victor may enjoy his company. 

Yuuri himself is already dangerously on the cusp of falling in love with Victor, and for the sake of his own delicate heart, he tries not to entertain those sorts of thoughts too often. 

It's difficult to abide by that self imposed law, however, when Victor seems bound and determined to keep Yuuri tucked tightly against his side, one hand on his person at all times. 

They're out to dinner with Phichit, Leo, and Guang-Hong again, though this time around Yuuri had made Victor promise not to drink anything harder than a soda for the sake of his younger competitors. They're not at a restaurant, which makes the request easier for Victor to abide by, choosing instead to wander between the food vendors who have set up stalls nearby the skating arena, all of them bundled into their coats and jostling each other good naturedly. Phichit has wrangled Yuuri into no less than half a dozen selfies, most of which include Yuuri laughing, face rosy from the cold and scrunched up as Phichit tries to persuade him to make a ‘sexy face.’

“Guang-Hong is much better at this than you are,” Phichit declares in mock disgust after a glimpse at the latest picture Yuuri has ‘ruined.’ “Aren't you supposed to be some sort of Eros expert by now?”

Yuuri shakes his head, smiling into the folds of his scarf, but Victor leans in close. His hand is settled gently into the dip of Yuuri’s back where his waist tapers in, and even through the layers of Victor's glove and Yuuri's sweater and coat, the pressure is enough to make his cheeks flush. Victor's lips skim against his ear, cold and soft. “He obviously wasn't watching your short program as closely as I was if there are any doubts in his mind about that,” Victor murmurs. 

Yuuri shivers, and it has nothing to do with the temperature. Victor's hand slips lower. 

He's been like this all evening, Yuuri thinks despairingly as his heart somersaults in his chest. Ever since the moment in the Kiss and Cry when Victor had wrapped his arms around him and squeezed him tight, whispering praise and sweetness into his ear, he's barely let Yuuri stray from his side. He keeps him there with a hand on his waist, or an arm around his shoulders, or Victor's hand tucked into the crook of Yuuri’s elbow. He didn't even disengage his affections when Phichit was dragging Yuuri into selfies, resulting in a visible hint of Victor in each frame. 

He's been practically  _ doting _ on Yuuri since the results of his SP were announced, and for all that Yuuri is attempting to guard his heart, he can't help but revel in the attention. It's not as though he had bested Victor's reigning world record, but Victor's as thrilled with Yuuri's new personal best as if it were his own. If he dares to indulge himself, he might even suspect that Victor is  _ more  _ pleased with Yuuri's results, since he can't quite remember seeing that wide open grin, slightly crooked and dimpling his left cheek, on any of the numerous podiums Victor has climbed. 

He would know; he used to have pictures of each of those wins plastered around his rooms in Hasetsu and Detroit. He spent most of his youth staring up at a two dimensional version of Victor, the image flat and unable to return the yearning gaze Yuuri knew he wore when he imagined one day being worthy of sharing the same ice as the great Victor Nikiforov. 

Yuuri's heard before that you should never meet your idols, and he thinks that maybe whoever said that never thought to consider that one day, someone like Victor would come around. Because Victor was nothing like the untouchable monument Yuuri had so long imagined him to be; Victor was larger than life, sure enough, if only for the way he seemed to brighten every room he walked into and the way he stole a bit of air from Yuuri's lungs with every boyish smile sent his way. Victor could be harsh and unforgiving, but rarely unkind, and any praise he leveled at Yuuri was always heartfelt and sincere in a way that left Yuuri aching to prove to Victor that he was deserving of that and more, that he would do his very best to make Victor proud. 

It would seem that he’s succeeded, at least for today, if the way Victor continues to cuddle close is any indicator. The attention has been lavish and unexpected, Yuuri’s heart racing with every new gesture. Victor has been a constant line of warmth and support against his side all evening, one that he leans into despite himself.

Almost on cue, Victor’s hand traces a line up Yuuri’s back, smoothing across his shoulders and drifting to cup the back of his neck. Victor squeezes gently, and Yuuri has no hope of containing the shudder that rides up his spine. 

“Are you cold?” Victor murmurs, sounding genuinely concerned. He shuffles impossibly closer, hand leaving Yuuri’s neck to find his upper arm. He rubs his hand up and down the space between Yuuri’s shoulder and his elbow in an attempt to warm him, oblivious to the fact that the violent blush rising on Yuuri’s cheeks is doing the job just fine. He finds the dip of Yuuri’s waist again and sinks his fingers in more firmly, tugging Yuuri snugly into his side. “I can’t have my Yuuri being cold, now can I?”

“Victor,” Yuuri stammers, looking up at him in surprise. He hears the distant, muted sound of Phichit taking a picture of the two of them on his phone, can hear the faint noise of Guang-Hong’s clumsy attempts at flirting with Leo. Victor’s face is close, so very, very close; close enough that he exhales through his nose and the warmth of his breath fogs up Yuuri’s glasses. Close enough that if Yuuri were more brave, more deserving of it, he could easily lean up and catch Victor’s lips between his own. 

Victor tilts his head imperceptibly, a tiny furrow appearing between his brows and the corners of his lips lifting into a curious sort of smile. “I wonder what’s going through your mind?” he whispers, and leans forward to carefully press their foreheads together. Their noses brush.

Yuuri's breath catches in his chest. 

The last piece of his heart, balanced precariously on that razor’s edge of loving Victor, topples over. The feeling settles into Yuuri's bones, warm despite the shock of it, and seeps its way into the marrow. Yuuri lets his own eyes drift shut as he sinks into the realization that it is far too late to keep from falling in love with Victor. He's been fooling himself by ever thinking, for even hoping, that this was at all avoidable. 

He swallows down the anxiety that burbles up, threatening to overwhelm him with the miserable reality of unrequited love, and allows himself a precious moment to truly relish the press of Victor against him. 

He smells like his expensive cologne and the warm cider he was drinking earlier, and also of Yuuri’s shampoo, which he inexplicably pilfered that morning despite having brought his own. This has the devastating effect of making it feel like he’s Yuuri’s; Yuuri’s to have and hold like this on a cold evening in Beijing, to selfishly keep from the skating world if it means he gets to steal some of Victor’s light and warmth for a little while longer. Like he’s Yuuri’s to love, as long as he’s allowed.

The soft leather of Victor’s glove brushes against the swell of Yuuri’s cheek, and Yuuri forces his eyes open and up to meet his gaze. Victor's eyes are out of focus at this distance, but unmistakably concerned. “Are you alright?” Victor asks, voice pitched low. “We can go back to the hotel, if you’d like.”

It appeals to Yuuri, in a distant sort of way. He’d like to leave the company they’re in, would like to hole himself up in his room and panic about just what it means to be in love with someone as unattainable as Victor, wants to drag Phichit off to somewhere private and let his friend talk him down from this ladder of idiocy he’s climbed. But there’s a part of him - larger and more yearning - that wants to cling to this illusion just a little bit longer. It’s self-indulgent and embarrassing, but he's helpless to the impulse. 

“No,” he manages to get out. His hands find their way out of the safety of his coat pockets and curl together briefly at the back of Victor's neck before sliding down his shoulders, his arms, to cup at the bend of Victor's elbows. “We can stay out a little while longer.”

Victor's eyebrows flick upwards in surprise at the lingering touch, but he says nothing. His eyes shift ever so slightly from side to side, struggling to make eye contact with Yuuri given how close they stand. He looks like he's searching for the truth of Yuuri's words, or validation that Yuuri is actually alright with staying out for an hour longer. The corners of Yuuri’s mouth lift into a small, reassuring smile, which seems to be all the proof that Victor requires. 

Their bodies pull apart, but only for a moment, because Victor’s arm is a line of warmth across Yuuri’s shoulders as he tugs him back into his side. Yuuri shoves his hands back into his coat pockets, partially to keep them hidden from the cool night air, and partially because the temptation to wrap his own arm around Victor’s waist - or, God, to tangle his hand in the one dangling off of his shoulder - is strong. 

The two of them turn back to the group, and Yuuri determinedly ignores Phichit’s raised eyebrows and pointed glance between them. He’s not in the mood to discuss this latest emotional development with Phichit; he’s barely in the mood to think about it too hard himself, lest he find himself sucked into the black space of a panic attack. 

Just for now, he thought desperately to himself as he clenched his fingers into his palms. Just for now, he would let himself enjoy the heat of Victor next to him, of the mingling scent of his cologne and Yuuri’s shampoo, and let himself be in love without thinking too much about it.

Just for now, and then he would retreat to his hotel room, get a good night’s sleep, face the Free Skate in the morning, and do his best to shove these hopeless feelings into a place where they wouldn’t have a hope of finding their way out. 

Victor’s hand tightens on his shoulder, and Yuuri’s heart tightens with it.

_ ‘Yeah,’  _ he thinks to himself, closing his eyes against the rush of affection swelling in his chest.  _ ‘Good luck, Katsuki. You’re going to need it.’ _

  
  


**ooo**

  
  


Yuuri doesn’t sleep.

The hours pass and he doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t sleep, and he  _ doesn’t sleep _ .

He lays in bed and panics, first about Victor, and then about the Free Skate, and back to Victor again. He stresses over the look in Phichit’s eyes as he’d glanced between Yuuri and Victor, wondered if his best friend was judging him for falling for someone so far out of his league, or if he thought Yuuri was pathetic for pining so long and not taking any action. He wonders, not for the first time, if any of the other skaters see him as an actual competitor rather than just Victor’s pet project. He panics about his upcoming program, about the quadruple salchow, about all the jumps he’s landed and all the ones he hasn’t.

He lays there in an unfamiliar bed and swallows down every hitching breath until they form a knot in his chest, one that grows larger with every passing minute. Yuuri stays awake, and doesn’t sleep, and watches the world outside his hotel room slowly growing brighter. 

His limbs feel heavy and useless as he pulls himself out of bed, phone trilling with his morning alarm, and drags himself into the shower.

As the hot spray of water beats down across his shoulders, he presses his forehead into the cool tile wall. The cold feeling of dread that has been sinking into his body for the last few hours seems to cancel out the heat of his shower, making him shudder and curl into himself.

The most he can do now, he figures, is hope that Victor doesn’t leave his side too quickly when he fails.

  
  


**ooo**

  
  


The weight of the silver medal is a comfort against his chest.

Not, he suspects, quite so comforting as gold, but he can’t begrudge Phichit for this win. His performance was phenomenal and almost flawless, and Yuuri had only felt excitement and pride at the sight of his friend on the highest platform on the podium. Phichit had drawn him into selfie after selfie, the both of them beaming, medals looped around their necks, clenched between their teeth, held in the other’s hand. 

Phichit may have won gold, but Yuuri has silver, which means he’s still got a chance at the Grand Prix, and which means Victor won’t be leaving his side quite so soon. 

_ Victor _ .

Unbelievably, Yuuri appears to have him, too.

They’re slowly making their way up to Yuuri’s hotel room, both of their arms laden with bouquets of flowers and a few overstuffed plushies, sharing mindless small talk and glancing at one another out of the corner of their eye when they think the other isn’t looking.

It’s  _ exhilarating.  _

Yuuri can still feel the hard press of Victor’s mouth against his own - only a split second of time, but unmistakable. He feels the ache of hitting the ice in his hips, his shoulder blades, and suspects he should be glad Victor thought to cup his head to keep it from slamming into the unforgiving ground. 

He feels euphoric, and if his hands weren’t quite so full, he has no doubt that he’d find himself tracing the line of his own lips, over and over, just to chase the feeling of Victor’s kiss.

They come to a stop outside of Yuuri’s hotel room door, and after a moment of juggling his various congratulatory gifts, he manages to swipe his card and usher Victor inside. Their combined bounty finds its way onto the small desk the hotel has provided, Victor careful to lay the flowers in such a way that the petals won’t find themselves crushed.

The two of them stand there in a heavy, awkward silence until, almost in unison, they both open their mouths to speak.

“You - ” Yuuri starts, just as Victor begins to say, “I wanted - ”

They both stop speaking and glance up at one another, making full eye contact for the first time since Victor had cradled him against the ice. An all encompassing giddiness rises up in Yuuri and he feels his mouth split into a grin. Victor answers it with one of his own, crooked and genuine, his blue eyes glittering in the low light. 

“I wanted to kiss you for so long,” Victor says, and it sounds breathless through his toothy smile. His eyes are flickering over Yuuri’s face. “For so  _ long _ , Yuuri.” He takes a step forward.

The confession sends a thrill up Yuuri’s spine and an impulse into his arms, which rise up to loop around Victor’s neck. He steps forward into Victor’s space and tilts his face upwards until their noses brush together. Victor’s hands sink into his hair and cup the back of his head, supporting him like he’s something precious, something cherished. 

Their foreheads touch, bringing their mouths tantalizingly close, but neither makes the motion to close the distance. Yuuri’s eyes drift shut and he lets his arms slip down, until his forearms are pressed into Victor’s chest and collarbone, and his hands are clasped together behind his neck. 

“You were so beautiful today,” Victor whispers, tilting his face so that the words are little more than a brush of lips against Yuuri’s cheek. “You were so strong, and I was so proud, Yuuri,  _ my Yuuri - ” _

Yuuri’s chest hitches and he lifts himself up onto the barest hint of tip-toe to finally,  _ finally _ press his mouth to Victor’s.

Victor makes a noise in the back of his throat like Yuuri’s never heard before - gut punched and soft, like he really has been waiting for this moment for a long time - and pulls Yuuri in tight. One of his hands drops only to worm its way between them, wrapping firmly around Yuuri’s waist. Victor’s lips are soft and full, a fact that had escaped Yuuri’s notice during their first kiss since it had lasted barely a second before Victor was turning his face away to protect both of their mouths in the impact. But now, Yuuri has the chance to relish the plush set of Victor’s lips against his own, the way he can feel the slight traces of Victor’s expensive lip balm. The kiss stays close-mouthed and relatively chaste, but it has Yuuri shaking where he stands, and trusting Victor to hold him up.

He pulls away, breathing heavily, and licks his lips. Victor makes that noise again - the quiet, desperate one - and leans in for their third kiss.

His mouth is more insistent, his hands still strong and reeling Yuuri inwards, and Yuuri bends easily to his desire. He parts his lips and catches Victor’s bottom one between his own, tongue darting out to wet the flesh. Victor’s mouth opens to him almost on command, and his body shudders under Yuuri’s hands. 

By the time Victor’s mouth is opened fully to his own, their tongues slipping together and faces pressed so close that it’s knocking Yuuri’s glasses askew, Yuuri feels almost dizzy with happiness. This...this moment, with Victor kissing him as if it’s all he’s ever wanted, feels like the dream Yuuri tried never to allow himself, because he thought it would only lead to heartbreak. How was he to know that this was possible, that this could be his reality - that he could one day have Victor in his arms and in his heart and know that Victor held him in the same way?

Victor tastes like the tea he favors, and like one of the candies he’d gladly pilfered from Guang-Hong’s supply. He still smells like his expensive cologne and Yuuri’s shampoo, and he’s the same Victor that Yuuri fell in love with, only now he’s kissing him.

He’s  _ kissing _ him.

Yuuri presses himself closer, lifting more firmly up onto his toes, and drags his mouth away from Victor’s to smear against his cheek to the cut of his jaw, and down his neck. He mouths at the tendon, feeling Victor swallow beneath his lips, and noses into the space where Victor’s collar meets his skin. “Victor,” he says, whispering the name into the hollow of his throat. “Victor.”

Victor’s hand, still twined in the fine strands of hair at the back of Yuuri’s head, tighten and pull back, dislodging Yuuri’s mouth from his neck and leaving it free for him to claim for himself once again. His other hand slips down from his waist, cups at the back of his thigh and tugs up at the same time he bends his knees, urging Yuuri upwards.

Yuuri jumps, legs wrapping around Victor’s slim hips, and meets him halfway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. two

Life in Hasetsu, Yuuri has always heard it said, gave the impression of being nothing short of idyllic.

He could see the reasoning for the thought, could find it in the gentle waves at the beach front and the way everyone in town knew each other. He saw it in the spring as the cherry blossoms drifted down on gusts of warm wind, making the air smell sweet. 

But there were certain unfortunate realities to living in a town like Hasetsu. The dying tourism industry, for one, left his family in a constant state of worry about the future of their onsen, of their home. Family friends whose businesses had gone under, or were on the verge. The way that sometimes, his hometown felt stagnant; or maybe that was just Yuuri, hyper aware of how little things had changed no matter how long he was away.

Then Victor had come along, blowing into town and shaking things up, drawing attention to sleepy little Hasetsu with every gushing Instagram post, and bringing in a new wave of visitors the likes of which hadn’t been seen in ages. It didn’t particularly surprise Yuuri that Victor’s presence seemed to revitalize the city, given how full of life Victor was at any given moment. He had an almost endless sense of enthusiasm for everything new that he encountered, as if - despite all of his traveling for competitions - he had never been on a vacation of any sort, and now was greedy for it. 

Yuuri loves him wholly. 

It’s that love, he supposes, that makes Hasetsu seem like that quaint town he’s always heard of, that makes the air smell sweet with cherry blossoms despite winter creeping ever closer, and makes the world seem...brighter, more fresh.

There’s not much space between the Cup of China and the Rostelecom Cup, but they spend what time they do have in those two weeks training hard, soaking in the hot springs, and kissing.

So much kissing.

Yuuri hasn’t kissed many people; two, in fact, one being an American girl at a party in college who had kissed him and smeared lipstick all over his mouth and then promptly vomited on his shoes, and the other being Phichit and the one session of making out that they never spoke of or repeated again, for the sake of their friendship. That first kiss had been an exercise in misery and disappointment and  _ I waited so long for  _ **_that_ ** _? _ , and while that one indulgence with Phichit had been enjoyable, it hadn’t at all felt like Yuuri was expecting it to when you kissed someone you genuinely cared for.

But kissing Victor was like feeling his nerves stand up on end, like a soothing balm that calmed them down again and set Yuuri adrift. He could lose himself in the feel of a mouth against his own, lips parted and tongues brushing and the occasional click of teeth. Kissing Victor was everything and nothing like Yuuri had ever imagined it to be; all consuming and heated, but with just the right amount of imperfections to remind Yuuri that it was really happening, that Victor really did like kissing deep and wet and for so long that Yuuri’s lips felt numb after. 

Loving Victor from afar had been the only life that Yuuri had known for so long, and now loving Victor and actually  _ being  _ with Victor somehow makes it feel as though the universe has expanded, bigger and brighter than ever, and then narrowed down to only the two of them.

Victor still has his own bed in the conference room at Yu-Topia, but they share Yuuri’s bed more nights than not, trusting his door to do a better job of keeping in their quiet gasps and moans as they slide together, Victor’s hand wrapped around the both of them and Yuuri’s mouth leaving small rounds of bruised flesh against his collarbone. 

Victor touches him, kisses him, holds him, all like Yuuri is the most treasured thing in his life. He watches Yuuri fall apart against him, time and time again, eyes almost greedy as he drinks in every shaking limb and every heaving gasp, every cry of his name from Yuuri’s throat.

If Yuuri didn't know better, he would think that Victor was just as inexperienced as he, just as mindlessly eager to absorb as much of Yuuri as he could with each new touch. 

Yuuri gets to kiss Victor first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and all the hours in between. For all that Victor has felt perpetually out of reach in all the time Yuuri has admired him, that last hidden piece of wall between them fell with that first impulsive kiss. Victor’s hands seem to be able to find some part of Yuuri no matter where they stand, and any reticence Yuuri feels about such casual affection has evaporated in the face of Victor's easy, open happiness.

Yuuri isn't about to go around condoning any more internationally televised kisses, but he will gladly lean into the sweet press of Victor's lips against his temple, and sink into the circle of his embrace whenever Victor wants a hug. Yuuri doesn't know if he'll ever be able to be as publicly free with his affections as Victor, but he's more than willing to try if it means he gets to see the way that Victor’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles. 

One quiet evening, after the onsen has emptied out and Yuuri’s family has long since gone to sleep, Yuuri lies awake in bed and traces his fingers over Victor’s chest, fingernails catching in the fabric of his shirt. Victor has one hand curled loosely over his forearm, thumb stroking at the fine hairs, and the other hand settled against the curve of Yuuri’s waist, shirt rucked up enough to allow for the press of palm to skin. “When,” Yuuri starts, and then stops, biting his lips and swallowing down the words.

“What is it, любимый?” Victor murmurs. This late at night, his accent tends to thicken, becoming syrupy and drawling. It makes it a bit harder for Yuuri to understand him, sometimes, but he sounds so soft and sweet that it makes his heart clench in his chest. Whatever Russian word he’s used sounds to Yuuri like little more than a grumble, but there’s no mistaking the affectionate undertone. One day, he thinks as he watches his fingers trail their way up to Victor’s collarbone, he’s going to have to ask him what that word means. Victor’s used it at least once a day since that day in Beijing where everything changed.

“When was it that you knew,” Yuuri whispers, mostly into Victor’s shoulder. “That this was what you wanted?”

“This?” Victor asks.

“You know,” Yuuri says, and brings his hand down to prod at the space above Victor’s heart. “This sort of thing, with you and me?”

“Oh,” Victor says, and squeezes at Yuuri’s forearm. “That. Well, since the beginning, naturally.”

“Tch,” Yuuri admonishes, laughing a little bit despite himself. “I’m being serious.”

“So am I,” Victor tells him, then grunts when Yuuri digs his finger into his sternum. “Alright, alright! I suppose, if I had to pick a moment…”

His voice trails off, and for a moment Yuuri wonders if Victor’s fallen asleep - it is rather late after all - but when he glances up, Victor’s eyes are open but slightly distant, a small furrow between them as he searches for whatever memory is the answer to Yuuri’s question. 

After a moment, he says, “Do you remember that day at the Ice Castle, when I gave you and Yurio your Eros and Agape assignments?”

“Mm,” Yuuri agrees. He’d be hard pressed to ever forget that day.

“You told me that if you won the Hot Springs on Ice exhibition, that all you wanted was to be able to win with me by your side. That you only wanted me there to eat katsudon with you.” He pauses, but Yuuri says nothing. He’s familiar with the weight of Victor’s silences when he’s trying to find the words. “No one had ever said something like that to me before,” Victor whispers, and his grip on Yuuri tightens, urging him to shuffle closer. “For so long, people have only wanted one thing or the other from me. My success, my medals, my fame. My routines. Yurio, he flew all the way from Russia just to make me choreograph for him, and he made it very clear that was all he wanted from me. But you, Yuuri. All you wanted was time spent together, and you were so willing to do what it took to make that happen.” 

Victor turns his nose into Yuuri’s hair and takes a deep breath. His lips find the crest of Yuuri’s forehead in the next moment. “Or maybe it was that day on the beach, when you asked me to simply be myself. No one’s ever wanted that from me before. They’ve always just wanted who they thought me to be. But you just wanted Victor as Victor, and I remember shaking your hand and wishing I could kiss you.” He shrugs, and the motion jostles Yuuri. “I’m not trying to avoid the question when I tell you I have a hard time pinning down any exact moment, Yuuri. Since we first met, I’ve found myself drawn to you.”

“Oh,” Yuuri whispers. He tightens his grip on Victor’s shirt, the fabric pulled between his fingers, and feels the heavy press of tears behind his eyes, threatening to fall. 

“And you, my Yuuri?” Victor asks, and his body shifts, turning onto his side so that they’re curled together like parentheses. “When did you know?”

Yuuri’s throat clicks, feeling dry when he tries to swallow. The question feels largely impossible to answer. Just thinking of trying to put all of his feelings for Victor into words makes his stomach curdle, makes his tongue knot up and makes his chest feel tight with fear. But he owes it to Victor to try, after the other man gave him the same courtesy.

“I’ve always admired you,” he begins, speaking into the space between them. His eyes are fixed on the divot at the center of Victor’s collarbone. He doesn’t know if he’d be able to get the words out, looking into Victor’s eyes. “You know that.”

Victor hums in agreement.

“For so long, I was so afraid of getting close to you. You had always been so...unattainable, this distant star, and having you suddenly within my reach, I suppose I was afraid of being burned.”

“I don’t think I like this story,” Victor grumbles, but his hand runs a soothing line down Yuuri’s back.

“I was terrified of having you here, but I was more terrified you’d go. That you’d leave for Russia with Yurio. And I knew that if I didn’t let you closer, even just a little, that I could lose you forever.” He swallows. “And one morning, a week or so before the exhibition at Ice Castle, when we met in the dining room for breakfast, do you remember? You had overslept. You came and sat down at the table and your hair was a mess and your shirt was backwards and you barely seemed to notice Makkachin eating half of your food. And...you smiled at me, and it was the first time I realized that...maybe you were a star, but you would never burn me.”

He takes a moment to let himself breathe, doing his best to fight down the tears starting to bite at the corners of his eyes. Despite the warmth of Victor next to him, of Makkachin sleeping by their feet, and all the covers laid on top of them, Yuuri shivers, overwhelmed. Victor kisses his forehead again, murmuring in indistinguishable Russian, sounding sweet. 

“I almost had a panic attack before the Hot Springs event, you know,” Yuuri confides, finally lifting his face and forcing himself to meet Victor’s gaze head on. Victor’s eyes are dark in the low light, but still so achingly soft and kind as he gazes down at Yuuri. “Breathing was hard, and my vision started blacking out, and then suddenly...you were there. Helping me find a center to come back to, even though you didn’t realize. I hugged you, remember?”

“I remember,” Victor says, sounding fond. “You told me to watch you, and I told you I loved katusdon. Didn’t you ever wonder what I meant?”

“I didn’t let myself,” Yuuri admits. He closes his eyes when Victor leans forward to buss a kiss against the apple of his cheek. “But on the podium, you held my arm and kept me calm, and I knew I wanted to kiss you then, even if I couldn’t admit it to myself until later.”

Victor’s nose brushes against his own, their faces so close that he can feel the brush of Victor’s eyelashes when he blinks. “I changed my mind,” Victor murmurs, and dips down for a soft, short kiss. “I like that story after all.” 

He leans in for another kiss, but in the last second between their lips skimming and connecting fully, Yuuri twitches back. 

“I love you,” he says, and his voice is raw. The tears he’s been holding back finally find their way down his cheeks, across his nose, pooling into his ear. His heart is pounding in his chest, he’s  _ terrfied _ , but he needs to say it. Needs Victor to know, without question, what Yuuri feels for him. “Victor, I love you. I love you so much, I - ”

Victor darts in for a hard kiss, both hands cupping Yuuri’s cheeks and thumbing away the tears. “I love you, Yuuri,” he says, and he sounds as scraped apart as Yuuri feels. Even in the dark of the room, Yuuri can see that his eyes are suspiciously bright. As close as they are, as tightly as they’re holding onto one another, Yuuri can feel him tremble. “I love you, I love you, I... Я тебя люблю.”

Those words.

Those  _ words _ , the ones that Yuuri has heard out of Victor’s mouth for months now but been too afraid to ask for the meaning. They’re the same words that Victor says to him when Yuuri’s had a particularly successful practice, or when he makes Victor laugh, or when he tightens his grip just so and Victor falls apart, gasping, into his arms.

All this time, and Yuuri’s never understood. Victor says them again, and Yuuri memorizes the shape of them on Victor’s lips, stores the sound of them inside his heart, determined never to question their worth again. 

Victor says it again, and Yuuri can’t escape the burning need to kiss him. He finds the words sound best when they’re lost between their lips.

  
  


**ooo**

  
  


Loving Victor makes the world seem larger, brighter and warmer, until Yuuri’s phone rings at the Rostelecom Cup and his stomach sinks like a stone.

He sends Victor away to Japan, towards Makkachin, and doesn’t regret it. Even still, Victor’s absence is glaring, nearly blinding.

During his free skate, the newly widened world narrows down to a point.

Yuuri stumbles.

He falls to his knees, and wishes that the ice would crack open and swallow him whole.

  
  


**ooo**

  
  


Yuuri’s hands can’t seem to stop shaking. 

The tremors had begun the moment he’d stepped through the doors at the airport, intent on retrieving his luggage and resigned to facing a long and lonely train ride home. They’d started trembling when he heard the familiar sound of Makkachin’s bark, and met the faded, tired blue of Victor’s gaze. 

They’d shivered into motion in the same instant that Yuuri’s heart had stuttered in his chest, thundering back to life a bare second later. He blames it on the cold - the shock of it after hours upon hours on the warm airplane - but that isn’t quite right. His hands had stilled, briefly, on the bony curves of Victor’s shoulders as Yuuri made his plea.

His  _ proposal. _

But even now - after remembering to actually retrieve his luggage, and the two of them making their way to the train station - his hands still shake. He can’t blame it on the cold any longer either, not when the train compartment they secure for themselves feels almost oppressively warm in comparison to the winter chill outside.

Yuuri sheds his jacket as they settle into a pair of seats towards the back of the empty car. He loops the straps of his face mask back around his ears, keeping it tucked beneath his chin, before unraveling his scarf and tucking it between his thigh and the wall beside him.

Makkachin climbs into his lap as soon as Yuuri’s stopped shifting around, nudging a wet nose against the flush of his cheek. He laughs, breathless and relieved, and sinks his fingers into the snow dusted curl of Makkachin’s coat.

His hands shake against the fur.

“Hello,” Yuuri says, curling over and pressing a kiss into the crown of the dog’s head. He presses another to the side of his nose for good measure. Makkachin grins against his face and licks into his ear. “You scared me, you know.” He buries his nose into the side of Makkachin’s neck as the dog makes a valiant attempt at getting even closer. He breathes in, taking in the medical scent that lingers, the sharp bright smell of winter, and beneath it all, the comforting mingle of dog-smell and Victor’s cologne.

“Don’t worry,” Victor says as he settles into the seat next to Yuuri, legs crossed at the knee and his body tilting into the two of them. His fingers bump into Yuuri’s when he runs them through the fur on Makkachin’s head, a reverent caress of his own. “He and I had a very long talk this morning. He won’t be doing something so foolish again.”

Their fingers tangle together briefly, but that’s the moment that Makkachin decides he’s had enough of their attention and hops down from the seat, only to claim the two across from them as his own. His head settles onto his paws and he looks at them, eyebrows twitching expectantly.  _ Well _ , he seems to say,  _ go on. _

Victor takes advantage of the newly empty space between them to lean in and press a delicate kiss against the chapped moue of Yuuri’s mouth. Their lips stick together slightly as they pull apart. Victor’s fingers push his hair behind his ear. His face tilts into Yuuri’s, foreheads touching and their noses brushing, and even without kissing it’s as intimate a feeling as Yuuri has ever known.

“I missed you,” Victor says, peering at Yuuri intensely from the disheveled fringe of his hair. He almost seems...afraid, like he’s worried Yuuri will vanish if he looks away. His thumb sweeps across Yuuri’s cheek, his palm settling against the curve of his jaw. “Congratulations on qualifying for the Grand Prix. I’m so proud of you.”

“Why?” Yuuri grinds out, the word escaping before he can begin to think about biting them back. “I was - miserable, I barely scraped my way into the Grand Prix. You shouldn’t be proud of me.” He clenches his hands into fists, holds them in his lap. Their shaking has become violent, vibrating up his arms.

 

“Don’t say that,” Victor says, sounding distressed. Yuuri can’t bring himself to meet his gaze. “Yuuri, you did your best. It’s disappointing that you didn’t make the podium, but you - ”

“What if I didn’t?” Yuuri gasps. He pulls his mask down off his ears and throws it aside. It had felt like it was choking him, looped under his chin and sitting against his throat like that. Even with it gone, he feels alarmingly as though he’s suffocating. “What if I didn’t do my best? You said it yourself, I underperform when I have something on my mind. All I could think about was failing without you by my side, and that’s exactly what I did.”

“Look at me,” Victor says, his voice scratched and pleading. His hold on Yuuri’s face tightens slightly. “Yuuri, please look at me.”

Despite the gnawing feeling growing in his chest, Yuuri forces his gaze up. In the dim lighting of the train car, left low due to the late hour, Victor’s eyes look like rings of gold. Yuuri swallows.

“You amaze me, Yuuri,” Victor says. He sounds quiet and firm. Absolute. “Every time I see you on the ice, you take my breath away. No matter the mistepts, or the scores, I look at you and I find inspiration. I’ve never felt this way before, so full of pride - of love - for anyone, the way I do for you. You may fall, Yuuri, but you always get back up. That’s not failure, my love. That’s strength.”

Between one breath and the next, it feels to Yuuri as though his chest cracks open. He nearly chokes on the sob that crashes through him, splintering his ribs. His hands scrabble at the fabric of Victor’s off white Henley shirt - soft and well loved - and then fist into the cotton. “I don’t feel strong,” he rasps, and his head falls forward to press, hard, into the curve where Victor’s neck meets shoulder. “Not right now..”

“I know,” Victor soothes, his palm fitting against the back of Yuuri’s head and stroking down the hairs there. “And it breaks my heart sometimes, the fact that you can’t seem to see how very wonderful you are. Until the day that you do, and then for all the days beyond it…” Victor pries one of Yuuri’s hands off of his shirt and kisses the knuckle of his third finger. The feeling of it burns. “I’ll be beside you. And maybe...you’ll be able to find strength in me.”

Yuuri shudders against him, overwrought and exhausted. It isn’t until he sniffles that he realizes tears are leaking from his eyes and leaving a damp spot on Victor’s shirt. “I’ve always found strength in you,” he confesses. He feels scraped raw, laid open, and he fears Victor may not understand the enormity of the truth behind his words.

It’s the fundamental truth of his life; he’s always looked to Victor in his darkest moments, long before their first real conversation, and long before he knew that Victor could possibly feel the same. It’s been like that ever since he was a child dedicated to a sport that wasn’t necessarily his gift, but driven into hard work by the thought of maybe, one day, finding equal footing with a god. 

Victor drops a kiss onto the top of his head. “You have no idea how happy that makes me,” he whispers, voice low and soft in a way that Yuuri is used to hearing only in the confines of his bedroom. “Oh, my Yuuri. What did I tell you, hmm? You’re always finding new ways to take my breath away.”

Yuuri presses closer, feeling all the things he’s never said out loud to Victor building up inside his chest, piling up against his ribs and making his mouth feel dry. He years to find the right words to say, wants them to rise up from their hidden place inside of him, so that he can properly convey the depths of his admiration. Of his gratitude. 

The depth of his love.

His tongue, however, feels too heavy, and his eyes feel the same. Sleepless nights, the misery of his free skate performance, and the bone-deep fatigue that comes with travel, all seem to catch up to him in the blink of an eye. 

“Sleep,” Victor urges, gathering Yuuri up against his chest. Once he’s satisfied with their proximity, he carefully drapes his overcoat atop the both of them. “I’ll wake you when we arrive in Hasetsu.”

Despite all the things he wants to say - that he  _ needs  _ to say - and the way he wants to stay awake in order to relish the feeling of Victor holding him tight, Yuuri settles in, nose brushing Victor’s neck. He slips into sleep easily.

The rest of the evening is a blur; he has only vague, hazy memories of arriving at the train station, and of the cab ride home. He has no recollection of Victor bundling him off to bed and carefully undressing Yuuri, curling in close for the night.

He is, however, aware of Victor’s chest against his back when he wakes, and the oppressive heat and weight of Makkachin asleep on top of his feet. He can see his and Victor’s phones on the window sill, so he picks one up to check the time, and can hardly believe it when he sees that it’s early afternoon.

Makkachin, seeming to have sensed that Yuuri is awake, crawls up the bed towards him, back legs stretching out behind him as he puts in the minimal amount of effort needed to reach Yuuri’s face with his tongue. “Good morning,” Yuuri whispers in Japanese. Makkachin seems to understand the tone, if not the words, and licks Yuuri’s cheeks with renewed vigor, whining high and happy in his throat.

“Hush,” Yuuri admonishes, despite the way he’s laughing under the playful assault. “We don’t want to wake Victor,” he says, this time using English in the hopes that Makkachin will understand him and heed his request.

“Victor is already awake,” intones the man in question, close to Yuuri’s ear and sounding amused. A kiss follows the words, pushed sweetly into the nape of Yuuri’s neck. His arm, looped around Yuuri’s waist, tightens imperceptibly. “How are my two favorite men this morning?”

Makkachin begins the arduous task of crawling over Yuuri in order to get to Victor, all without picking up his back legs to do any of the work. Victor’s laugh is quiet but bright, and unmistakably happy. Yuuri takes advantage of the poodle shaped wedge between them to turn over onto his stomach, propping up onto his elbows and watching Victor and Makkachin cuddle aggressively. His heart feels warm and full, almost painfully so when Victor catches his gaze over the top of the dog’s head.

Yuuri smiles back and lowers his head down into the crook of his arm, nose pressed into the crease of his elbow. Their eyes stay locked together, each drinking in the other like they were apart for years instead of a few dozen hours. 

Makkachin slithers off of the bed once he registers that the attention is no longer on him, and curls into a ball by Yuuri’s desk with a long-suffering sigh. 

“Hello,” Victor murmurs, using the newly freed space between them to turn his body in towards Yuuri. His hair, usually so well kept and combed, is a disheveled and bedraggled mess, and the bruises under his eyes are swollen and dark with exhaustion still, despite the many hours of sleep they’ve just woken from. There are pillow creases making red lines all over his cheek.

It’s the messiest he’s ever looked to Yuuri, and he’s still the loveliest thing that Yuuri’s ever seen.

“Hello,” Yuuri whispers back, shuffling closer. Their noses brush together.

“I missed you,” Victor says, his hand curling around Yuuri’s hip. “I hated waking up without you, my Yuuri.”

“You spent months waking up without me,” Yuuri points out, face hot and blushing crimson. “Years, actually.”

Victor makes a noise in the back of his throat as if he finds the reminder of time not spent together distasteful. “Maybe,” Victor allows. It’s silly and petulant, and Yuuri can’t believe they’re having this conversation, that Victor is attempting to negate their many years apart. “But now I know how beautiful you are when you sleep, and what it’s like to kiss you first thing in the morning.” He takes a breath and turns his face just so, his lips skimming across the rise of Yuuri’s cheekbone. “I’m sure you know by now that I’m a man who enjoys his luxuries, Yuuri, but I’d give up them all if it meant I’d never have to go another morning without waking up beside you.”

Yuuri’s breath stutters.

He wonders if Victor can feel the blazing heat of his blush with his lips, pressed against his cheek the way they are. “How is it that you can just...say these things?” he whispers, closing his eyes but leaning into Victor as he kisses his way down Yuuri’s face. He can feel his lips wanting to purse in anticipation. “Like they’re easy to put out there. As if you aren’t afraid.”

Victor, who’s reached his mouth by now, lets out a laugh instead of a kiss. It’s a susurrus of sound that Yuuri feels more than he hears, brushing against the sensitive skin of his lips. “Not afraid?” he repeats in disbelief, his voice hushed. “Yuuri, I’m  _ terrified. _ ” He kisses him then, a closed and careful thing, sweet in its simplicity. “I’ve never felt like this before, you know. I’ve no idea what I’m doing. But I’ve always been a fan of romance, and isn’t it all about saying what’s in your heart? That’s what I’ve always believed, anyway, but that doesn’t make it easy, or mean that I’m unafraid. It only means that, with you, and for the first time...I’ve found my heart full of words.”

The world pauses on its axis, careful and considering, then crashes back into motion as Yuuri processes what Victor’s just said. 

Yuuri surges forward and up into a kiss, mouth open as he embraces Victor with abandon. Victor receives him eagerly, palms cradling the small of Yuuri’s back and his hip and moving back when Yuuri urges him down into the mattress. He crawls atop of Victor, doing his best to keep their mouths connected, their tongues moving against each other, and straddles his lap. Victor’s hands slip between his tee and his skin, sliding up in broad, warm strokes to the space between his shoulder blades, making Yuuri’s sleeping shirt ruck up so that his bare stomach brushes against Victor’s. 

Yuuri can’t seem to decide where to touch him. His hands knot together at the back of Victor’s head, fingers slipping through silky silver strands and holding their faces together tightly. One hand - the right one - leaves, trailing its way down Victor’s neck. It moves across his shoulder, down to where his elbow and forearm meet so that he can direct Victor’s hold a little lower, until he feels long fingers on a warm hand skim over the swell of his ass. Victor’s shirtless - he sleeps in only a pair of briefs if he’s not completely nude - so the natural course of things seems to be for Yuuri to drag his nails against the ridge of Victor’s abdominal muscles, fingers splaying out from the loose curl of a fist once Yuuri reaches his chest. He fits his palm against the plane of Victor’s sternum, until he can feel a heartbeat thundering underneath. 

Victor pulls away with a gasp of his name, mouth blurring at the corner of Yuuri’s and following the cut of his jaw to the sensitive space in front of his ear. He mouths at it as Yuuri shudders against him, and slips his hand into the back of Yuuri’s cotton pajama pants. His palm immediately meets the soft, smooth skin of Yuuri’s ass, and the groan he gives is guttural and wanting. Yuuri loves the sound of it, loves knowing that Victor’s making such a noise because of  _ him, _ but he smothers it with a kiss all the same, because there are some things he desperately needs his family not to hear. 

Victor’s hand - the one not currently palming at the curve of Yuuri’s butt - fists into the fabric of his tee and pulls. Yuuri tips back enough that Victor call pull the shirt off over his head, down his arms, and send it flying into an unknown corner of the room. 

He’s seen Yuuri shirtless countless times before. Hell, they’ve seen each other fully naked on multiple occasions, most of which occurred before Victor ever kissed him on the rink in Beijing, but the reverence in Victor’s gaze each time Yuuri bares himself to him is always a novelty. Victor, flushed and disheveled and breathing heavily, looks at the naked expanse of Yuuri’s torso with candid desire, mouth hanging open and his lips kiss-swollen and red. 

Yuuri’s familiar with the shape of his own body, knows the flat planes of his chest and the stubborn bit of belly fat that never seems to leave, is aware of the stretch marks that make silvery streaks down his hips and across the tops of his thighs, and all the minutiae of his form that he finds lacking. But Victor always seems to look at him as though he wouldn’t change an inch, like Yuuri is the most precious thing he’s laid his eyes on. Beyond gold, beyond the center of the podium, beyond the flash of lights and the adoring screams of fans who’ve never gotten so close, there’s Yuuri and his imperfections, sprawled atop of Victor and so full of love he sometimes feels he might shake apart.

Yuuri stares down at Victor, at the red flush spreading across his chest and the darkening blue of his hooded gaze, and feels his stomach clench. He pushes back on his hands, far enough that he can rise up onto his knees and hook his fingers into the elastic waistband of his pants. He begins to drag them down. Victor, with one palm still slipped inside, helps to push them down until they’re tucked beneath Yuuri’s ass and the band is tight against the back of his thighs and the tops of his legs. It’s constricting and slightly awkward, but not enough so to keep Yuuri from reaching down and sinking his own fingers beneath the waist of Victor’s briefs. 

Victor’s other hand leaves Yuuri’s waist and moves to the jut of his own hips, helping Yuuri to pull his underwear down until it sits mid-thigh, leaving his cock straining against the open air. Yuuri’s hand curls around him carefully, and Victor bucks into his grasp.

“Yuuri,” he breathes, jagged and low. A stream of Russian follows, all blurry consonants and unintelligible to Yuuri’s ears. It’s thrilling, as always, that even the simple touch of Yuuri’s hand can make Victor lose his grasp on their common language, can send him back to his most primal state of mind. Yuuri doesn’t understand a word of it beyond the curve of his own name and the rounded sound of Victor telling him he’s loved, but he can understand the force of feeling that sits behind them.

His own cock is flushed and rigid, brushing against his stomach and already smearing pre-come into the sparse black hairs that trail between his navel and his groin. It’s only a matter of leaning forward once again, pressing down onto his hands and lowering himself against Victor until they’re pressed together from hip to sternum, breathing harshly into each other’s mouth. Yuuri shifts his lower body back, then presses down as he rocks forward once again. It grinds them together, all dry friction and hard lines, and it rattles loose the breath in Yuuri’s lungs. 

“Hold on,” Victor rasps, and lets go of Yuuri long enough to dig his hand beneath the pillow he’s claimed as his own. It’s become their go-to hiding place for the modest bottle of lube they’d acquired a few days after the China Cup, since Victor is more likely to remember it in the heat of the moment. He flicks the cap open, though it takes a few tries, and dispenses a small pool of liquid into his palm. The bottle, resealed and not in danger of spilling, is tossed carelessly to the foot of the bed as Victor concentrates on getting a hand around them both.

His palm is as warm as ever but the lube is cooler than the blood-hot flush of their lower bodies, so Yuuri can’t help the way he jolts when Victor’s fingers curl around the length of him.

“I’ve got you,” Victor whispers fiercely, wrist twisting on the upstroke and his hand a slick blur against the head of Yuuri’s cock. “I’m right here, my Yuuri.”

Yuuri closes his eyes and shudders at the pull of Victor’s hand, the way he lays his palm flat against the length of him and brushes his fingers against the heavy weight of his balls. He lets these lingering touches go on for a moment or two before he reaches down and pulls Victor’s hand away carefully. His presses their hands together, letting the lube transfer over to his own hand, and reaches down instead.

His hands aren’t as large as Victor’s, his fingers not as long, but he fits his hand around them both the best he can and thrusts into the grip. The velvety line of Victor’s cock, hard against his own and shifting beneath his touch, is as mind shatteringly perfect as it was the first time they ever did anything like this. Victor’s thighs are trembling beneath his own, hips twitching up and into Yuuri as their mouths meet in an open kiss. 

They go on this way for a while, tongues brushing and bodies shifting, taking brief moments to gasp the other’s name or whisper encouragements. Victor’s hand is curled into a loose fist by his head, palm still slick with lube, when he pulls away from Yuuri and makes a request. “Let me try something?” he says. It’s not quite a question, nor is it a demand, but there’s a sense of urgency behind the words that makes Yuuri nod, acquiescing easily to Victor’s desire. 

He trusts him, wholly and assuredly. Victor would never do a thing to make him uncomfortable, not here, which is what makes it easy for Yuuri to nod and roll onto his side onto the mattress, pants still caught around his thighs and cock more slick and flushed and straining than it was before. It’s embarrassing, sometimes, how quickly his body succumbs to basic want and need under Victor’s touch, but Victor never seems anything but thrilled with the way he can make Yuuri shake apart so easily, and sometimes even twice in one night.

Victor peels his briefs down his long legs and drops them unceremoniously onto the floor. He shifts up onto his knees and faces Yuuri, who swallows and lifts his hips when Victor hooks his fingers into the waistband of his pants and pulls them down, over his shaking thighs and his bony knees and his feet. He pulls the soft cotton off of Yuuri’s body completely, until he's laid out bare to Victor's hungry gaze. 

Victor meets Yuuri’s gaze with eyes that are dark, his pupils blown wide with arousal, and holds them as he reaches somewhere behind himself and slightly to the left and, unerringly as ever, comes up with the bottle of lube. He pours some out onto his palm and tosses it away again before wrapping his hand around himself. His eyes flicker shut briefly as he strokes himself, and Yuuri wouldn't be able to take his eyes off of Victor like this (chest flushed, eyes half open, hand making slick noises as he works himself and leaning over Yuuri looking like every wet dream from his adolescence) even if the world was burning down around them. 

Yuuri reaches down with his left hand to touch himself. The lube from earlier has started to dry in the air, adding a touch of friction to every pass of his hand. It tears a noise out of his throat - barely more than an aspiration of sound - but it makes Victor's eyes spark. 

“Turn onto your side,” Victor urges, gently nudging Yuuri with the hand not currently in use, directing him onto his right flank. Yuuri does so with only a small amount of trepidation; he trusts Victor not to do anything that Yuuri may not be quite ready for, but this is new for them, and he can't fight down a spike of nerves. 

He watches out of the corner of his eye as Victor shuffles forward on his knees, one hand still on himself and the other trailing fingers up the length of Yuuri's body as he goes. He trails over the bony knob of Yuuri’s knee, up the tightly muscled thigh, and drifts over and across the rise and fall of Yuuri’s hip and waist, ghosting over the stretch marks. “I love your body,” Victor says as he starts to lower himself down onto the mattress, careful to keep their hips aligned. “I’ve always thought you were beautiful.”

“If I remember correctly,” Yuuri laughs, a little breathless from how he can feel Victor’s knuckles brushing against the swell of his ass on every upward stroke, “you told me I had a pig’s body.”

Victor kisses a short line from the back of Yuuri’s neck over to his shoulder and it feels apologetic. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he admits lowly, mumbling. “Perhaps it wasn’t an ideal body for skating, but you were still so lovely, my Yuuri.” He shifts forward on the bed and presses into Yuuri, who can’t help the way his back arches as the line of Victor’s cock presses into his ass, slick and hot. “Soft and sweet.”

“Victor,” Yuuri mutters, feeling embarrassed. Victor only hums and wedges his hand in between Yuuri’s thighs, spreading lube in between them and making Yuuri jolt in surprise.

“Press your legs together tightly,” Victor instructs once Yuuri’s slicked up to his liking. Yuuri obliges, clenching the muscles in his legs down so firmly that he can feel a tremble building in his knees. Victor murmurs an encouragement and he presses forward, into the tight grip Yuuri creates between his inner thighs. Yuuri feels him shudder against his back once Victor’s slid as far as he can go, their lower bodies cradled together and perfectly fitted. He holds himself at the base of his cock with one hand, and clutches at the bedsheets with the other when he feels the head of Victor’s cock nudging up against his balls.

Victor shivers hard and noses at the side of Yuuri’s neck. “Oh,” he whispers. “You feel…”

He trails off as his hips pull back, dragging across the sensitive skin between Yuuri’s legs, and lets out a shuddery exhale as he pushes forward again. Yuuri can’t stop the sharp inhale he takes in through his nose Victor reaches an arm over his hip and curls a hand around the one that Yuuri has wrapped around himself. “Touch yourself,” Victor urges. His voice sounds as though it’s fraying at the edges, and if the last few weeks have taught Yuuri anything about himself, it’s that he’s helpless to Victor’s requests when he begins to sound like that. 

He moves his hand, letting Victor slip his long fingered grip around him, thumb and first two fingers circling his cock and ring and pinky fingers pressing against his balls. He closes his eyes and takes a breath, then starts to move his hand in time with Victor’s careful, rocking thrusts. 

Yuuri knows that he has a tendency to be quiet during these sorts of intimate moments, more out of a sense of discretion in the late hour, but now - with the early afternoon sunlight peeking through his window and the sounds of the onsen’s business - he finds himself less hesitant about letting loose quiet whimpers and short, stuttering moans. Each time he lets one out, Victor’s thrusts seem to grow a little harder, his grip a bit firmer. Emboldened, and on the end of a particularly grinding push of Victor’s hips, Yuuri lets his mouth fall open.

He moans into the crook of the arm pillowing his head, says, “Victor,” with a voice filled with longing, a voice that threatens to slip into Japanese. It’s less frequent for Yuuri that English abandons him; that’s more Victor’s  to slip into guttural sounding Russian when he’s feeling overwhelmed, but Yuuri can feel the way his tongue is flitting over Victor’s name, curling out the edges. It’s a modest loss of control, unnoticeable to most, but Yuuri catches it.

And so, apparently, does Victor. 

Almost in response, his mouth opens wide against the curve of Yuuri’s shoulder, teeth a brief hard press against the bone, and out spills a torrent of Russian. Yuuri can’t understand a word of it - Victor’s speaking too quickly, too lowly, for Yuuri to have a hope of catching one of the dozen words he knows by now - but he knows  _ Victor _ better than he could ever hope to learn his native language. He can tell from the tone, if not the words, that Victor is lavishing him with praise and encouragement as his hips churn ever faster into the tight space between Yuuri’s thighs.

His hand leaves its spot circled around the base of Yuuri’s cock and opts instead to roam up and down his body, dragging desperate fingers across the muscle of Yuuri’s chest, down to Yuuri’s abdomen where he splays his hand wide and presses in, pulling Yuuri more tightly against him. Sweat is making their bodies slip together now, in addition to the remnants of the lube between their legs. Victor’s cock is a hard nudge against Yuuri’s balls with every forward thrust, his lips can’t seem to decide between sucking kisses into Yuuri’s shoulder and neck or slurring Russian endearments and swear words, and when Yuuri lets his eyes slip open and his gaze catches on one of the faded spots on the wall where a poster of Victor used to be, something inside of him breaks loose. 

He's thought of this. For  _ years _ , he's thought of this. Dreamed it. Imagined Victor curled behind him, one hand on his cock and his voice in his ear, whispering to Yuuri about how special he was, how ordinary Yuuri Katsuki from Hasetsu had captured his attention, all while Yuuri lay alone in bed and stared up at the wall, trapped in fantasies of an unattainable idol. 

But Victor is very much  _ here _ , pressed tightly against him, sweat slicked and swearing and occasionally remembering enough English to tell Yuuri how much he loves him, and the weight of a decade’s worth of fantasies is suddenly, excruciatingly, too much to bear alone. 

“I used to dream about you doing this,” Yuuri manages to say between thrusts and the strokes of his own hand. The words are barely more than a hiccup of sound amongst the noise of their heavy breathing and the faint smack of skin against skin. The words are raw, his roots exposed; another hidden part of himself he’d intended to keep tucked away forever, only to find himself unfurling like a flower under the light of Victor’s attention. He can't tear his eyes away from the faded rectangle on the wall where a poster used to hang.

Victor's rhythm - smooth and unyielding - stutters. The hand splayed across Yuuri's chest suddenly clenches, fingernails scraping over sensitive skin. One finger catches on his nipple as it curls in, and the moan that rips its way out of Yuuri's throat spurs Victor back into action. The motions of his hips become sharper, more desperate, and the hand on Yuuri's chest straightens itself out enough for Victor to thumb at his nipple with an almost single minded determination. 

“Tell me,” Victor says, a catch in his voice that transforms the words from a demand into a plea. His mouth opens at the nape of Yuuri's neck, tongue laving at the heated skin he finds there and the edges of his teeth digging in. Yuuri doesn't have a hope of biting down the whine that builds in the back of his throat, thin and high. Victor lets out a weak, wrecked moan in response. It sounds like the rounded edge of Yuuri's name. 

It gives Yuuri the courage to speak up once again. He screws his eyes shut tight but lifts his head from his arm. Victor ducks slightly to accommodate the shift in position, and Yuuri tilts his head back far enough that he hits the jut of Victor's left shoulder and his lips can find the shell of an ear. 

“I used to think about you noticing me,” he confesses, breath hitching across the words. “Our paths crossing at a competition, maybe. Finding ourselves in a hotel room, and you would let me…let me…” The words trail off. 

Victor's hand leaves his chest and crawls up, spreading long fingers into a gentle cage across the exposed length of Yuuri's throat. “Let you?” he encourages, mouth finding the fluttering pulse beneath the hinge of Yuuri's jaw. 

Yuuri sees a flash of an old fantasy behind his eyelids: a hazy image of the Victor and Yuuri he used to dream of, two near strangers in a foreign city. It's a sharp contrast to the man who's sealed against his back, thrusting against him and doing his best to swallow down his moans as he waits for Yuuri to finish his story. It's probably a shock to no one that Yuuri prefers this reality to the one he used to concoct for himself; that he prefers  _ this  _ Victor, with his occasional thoughtless remark and his impulsiveness and his terrible morning breath, over the specter of his private musings. 

He licks his lips, and his tongue catches the very edge of Victor’s ear. “You’d let me go on my knees for you,” he whispers. Victor breathes out hard through his nose, and the air puffs against the column of Yuuri’s neck. Yuuri shivers and tightens his grip on himself. “Take you into my mouth.”

“Yuuri,” Victor gasps, sounding like the name is being torn out of him. His left hand is a vice on Yuuri’s hip now, fingers digging in against flesh and bone; an anchor in the realization of Yuuri’s wildest dreams. “Yuuri,  _ please, _ I’m...I’m so...keep talking, please!”

There’s something building, low and hot, at the base of Yuuri’s spine. He can feel the muscles in his thighs contracting, trembling as his body strives to find the feeling that’s chasing up and down his nerves. It makes him even more aware of the slide of Victor between his legs and every pass of his hand over himself. 

“I would lay here and think about you fucking me,” Yuuri pants. “I’d...I’d come all over myself just from thinking about...you - Victor,  _ Victor -  _ ”

The man in question snaps his hips  _ hard _ , once and then again, and comes all over the inside of Yuuri’s thighs, some dripping down into the crease where hip meets leg. Yuuri lets go of himself long enough to smear his fingers into it and then grips his cock again, adding the warm and viscous fluid to the mess of lube and pre-come already slick against his palm.

“I love you so much,” Victor whispers, mouth against Yuuri’s neck. He trails his own fingers down from where they’d been pressed into a bruising hold, through the still warm streaks of his own release, and pushes the pads of two fingers up into the space just behind Yuuri’s balls. He massages the spot gently, Yuuri’s name a whispered chant falling from his lips, and Yuuri can’t hold back anymore.

He feels the muscles in his legs lock up tight when he starts to come, hand stuttering over his cock, and it feels like all the air has been punched out of lungs as he splatters his chest, his abdomen, and the bedspread with sperm. His vision goes hazy at the edges, body in disagreement with itself as it simultaneously wants to stay rigid and go lax from orgasm.

Victor’s arms stay looped around him, cradling him through the aftershocks. He helps Yuuri shift around until his head is against the mattress once again. He takes advantage of the newly bared stretch of skin on the other side of Yuuri’s neck to press gentle, feather-light kisses wherever he can reach. His breath is still coming fast, but it hitches at the first feel of Victor's lips; his nerves feel like the ends have been peeled back, leaving him raw and feeling flayed. 

Victor's soft cock slips from the space between his thighs, and the sensation makes him laugh in between shuddering gasps for air. Victor smothers a chuckle of his own into the nape of Yuuri's neck when his giggles prove to be contagious. “You're the best thing that's ever happened to me,” Victor whispers, tugging Yuuri's body back into his, unmindful of the mess and the stickiness smearing under his hand. 

The words make Yuuri pink up, but luckily it's hidden under the flush of exertion still dusting over his face and making him sweat. “I'm pretty sure you're just saying that because I have sex with you,” he teases. Victor makes an offended noise, deep in his chest, and Yuuri feels its indignant vibration between his shoulderblades. He loses himself to breathless laughter once again and finds himself relatively helpless when Victor starts to manhandle his sticky, sated body around so that the bulk of the other man is draped heavily on top of him.

“Is that any way to talk to your beloved?” Victor implores, eyes comically wide in an attempt at innocence. It reminds Yuuri very much of the way Makkachin looks at the both of them when they’re eating and he’s hoping for a stray bit of pork to fall from their bowls. He’s disappointed to find that - like poodle, like owner - he’s helpless to resist this particular imploring look.

He’s also helpless to ignore the impulse to tease Victor a bit more, only a little, because he knows that Victor adores it when Yuuri breaks out of his shell enough to poke fun. “I guess not,” he sighs, and manages to wrangle his arm free so that he can curve his hand against the hinge of Victor’s jaw. Victor leans into it, lips nuzzling against the edge of Yuuri’s palm. “But it is the way to talk to  _ you. _ ”

Victor’s outraged squawk makes Yuuri laugh outright, mouth still grinning and wide open when Victor scrambles up his body (paying no mind to the disastrous amount of bodily fluids smearing between them) and does his best to kiss the laughter off of Yuuri’s lips. 

Victor’s hands are warm where they cradle Yuuri’s face, holding his head in place even as he shakes with laughter. Victor catches his mouth eventually and manages to get in one firm, close-lipped kiss before drawing back. His thumbs rub against Yuuri’s cheeks, stroking gently at the skin. His voice is still light with laughter but his eyes are serious when he gazes down into Yuuri’s upturned grin and says, in a voice quiet enough for just the two of them, “I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you."

Yuuri’s breath hitches.

Between the blurriness of exhaustion from the night before and the haze of pleasure he’s still drifting through, he’d nearly forgotten. The urgent request for Victor to care for him, Victor’s lips against the smooth expanse between knuckles, the way his tiredness had loosened the reigns on his emotions enough for him to blurt out his fears on the train ride home. Victor’s reassurances. Victor’s words of love.

Victor starts to draw away, making as if to heave himself off of the overly warm nest of blankets - probably in search of some sort of cloth to wipe off the mess on their bodies - but Yuuri catches him by the wrist before he can get too far. 

Victor stops in his tracks immediately and tilts his head in question. The only answer Yuuri can think to give him is to gently push Victor’s fingers into his palm, holding the tips of his middle and rings fingers beneath the thumb of his own hand. He brings Victor’s hand up to his lips and, careful to make eye contact with the man himself, presses a soft and lingering kiss against the skin. The hard ridge of Victor’s knuckle bumps into the underside of Yuuri’s nose. He ends the kiss with a small smack of noise, but keeps the line of Victor’s fingers against his mouth.

Victor smiles. “Yuuri,” he whispers, voice trembling with happiness, and falls down into another kiss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY sorry that this took uhhh forever. life has been completely bonkers since february, and it's been a struggle to find the time/energy to write anything. but with summer here, work should slow down a lot and my free time should open up significantly, so hopefully the last chapter won't take a gazillion years to arrive like this one did.
> 
> to make up for it, here's 12k of mostly porn.
> 
> also super sorry for any mistakes, i'll go back and edit anything terrible but i'm super impatient and wanted to post the dang thing asap

Yuuri’s no stranger to the weight of gold.

Prior to the embarrassment of his previous season, and despite never before making it to the Grand Prix final before reaching the age of 23,  Yuuri supposes it wouldn’t be completely inaccurate to say that he was well decorated as a figure skater. He’s accumulated a few dozen trophies, and there’s a box inside his closet where he keeps all of his medals, safely wrapped up in cloth. An equal smattering of silver and bronze, as well as a handful of golds. 

He remembers winning his first gold medal, feeling the cold press of it against his sternum and the way his spirits had soared before the anxiety had sunk in. Gold medals meant a standard to be met, meant expectations being built upon his shoulders, meant that every stroke of his skates on the ice had to be perfect in order to achieve this accolade once more.

Gold was pressure, and the chilling fear of failure, and the weight of the world’s eyes on his back. Gold was heavy enough to make him stumble, to make his toe pick catch, to drag down his jumps until they popped from triples down to singles. And still he yearned for it, desperate to be in the center of the podium, held above his peers so that the world could see he was something _special._

Gold had become his greatest ambition, and his greatest enemy.

The circle of gold around his finger feels nothing like the flat, heavy disc of competition. Yuuri’s never felt anything like this before, except maybe in early mornings when he opens his eyes and Victor is laying there beside him, the pale light of a new day making his hair shine even as it’s mussed from the pillow.

The moment - the very _instant_ \- that Victor took Yuuri’s shaking hand in his steady, sure grip and slid the matching gold band onto his finger, he’d felt nearly effervescent. It wasn’t an easy feat for someone perpetually weighed down by the trappings of his own anxiety, but in the shadows of the church, a choir singing behind them, and Victor’s beatific smile pressed against his own watery grin, Yuuri had never felt lighter.

As they make their way in search of a restaurant where they can celebrate, Victor keeps pulling them to a stop so that he can reel Yuuri in for long, lingering kisses. By the time they find Mari and Minako gawking at Otabek and Yurio through a window, Yuuri’s lips feel swollen and tingly. Every now and then he glances at Victor out of the corner of his eye and finds him looking just as thoroughly kissed and infinitely pleased with himself for it. As they walk into the restaurant, Victor catches him looking and he grins, pulling up in Yuuri's hand so he can kiss the gleaming metal sitting above his knuckle.

Even the revelation of his humiliating antics at last year’s Grand Prix banquet isn't enough to totally quell the feeling of euphoria that's been coursing through Yuuri’s body ever since Victor’s celebratory kiss in the shadow of la Sagrada Família.

Still, he's going to have to come up with a way to convince both Victor and Christophe to delete those videos and pictures from their phones. He imagines it's not going to be an easy feat, and dreads the sort of bribery and persuasion that's going to be involved. At least Phichit is thrilled with the existence of such damning visuals, even if Yuuri has to intervene every time he hints at someone sending him the media files. Yuuri adores Phichit, he really does, but the man lives his life on Instagram, and Yuuri doesn't need to wake up in the morning to find that a picture of him mostly naked and wound around a stripper pole has garnered tens of thousands of likes and has sent his name trending worldwide for all the wrong reasons.

Almost as though he senses that Yuuri's thoughts have turned his way, Phichit catches him by the elbow as they walk back to their hotel and links their arms together. “Well, hello, Mr. Katsuki-Nikiforov,” Phichit croons, nuzzling his cheek into Yuuri's right shoulder. “Spill.”

Yuuri raises an eyebrow at him, fighting down a fond smile. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Yuuri,” Phichit wheedles, reaching around with his other hand to poke Yuuri firmly in his side. “Don't play dumb with me, mister. Tell me everything. How did he do it? Did he already have the rings? Did he get down on one knee? I'm your best man, right?”

“Why do you assume Victor's the one who proposed?” Yuuri frowns.

Phichit gasps loudly and stops dead in his tracks, forcing Yuuri to stop moving as well. “ _Yuuri Katsuki!_ ” he whisper-shouts, staring up at him with wide, stunned eyes. “Are you telling me that you did this?!” ‘This’ is punctuated by Phichit yanking Yuuri's hand out of his jacket pocket, holding up to the streetlight above them so that the gold shines. “Oh my God, Yuuri, that's amazing!”

“Phichit,” Yuuri chides with an eye roll. He pulls his hand back and tucks it back into his pocket, but he's unable to keep himself from running his thumb along the smooth metal. “It's not that amazing.”

“It really is,” Phichit insists as he lets himself be guided back into motion. “Yuuri, you're getting married. And not only that, you're getting married to _Victor Nikiforov_ ! A year ago you'd have a panic attack just at the thought of talking to him, and now you've _proposed_. Trust me, the whole thing is a little amazing.”

Yuuri glances back, past where Otabek and Yurio are walking in steely but companionable silence, to where Chris and Victor are talking in rapid-fire French and laughing. Chris is holding onto Victor’s right hand, held close to his face like he was inspecting the ring much in the same manner as Phichit not even a moment ago. Victor catches Yuuuri’s eye and beams at him, eyes sparkling.

Yuuri has no hope of fighting down the answering grin that pulls at the corners of his lips. “It's pretty great, isn't it?” He asks softly, turning back to Phichit with what he can only imagine is a love struck expression, for all the Phichit makes a high noise in the back of his throat and pretends to swoon.

“Yuuri, it's like a _fairytale,_ ” Phichit insists, nuzzling back into Yuuri with a sigh. “I'm so happy for you, but I'm a little bit jealous.”

Yuuri tilts his head into Phichit’s in a gesture of consolation. For all that they're two people with very different personalities, and despite the almost four year gap in their ages, Phichit has always understood Yuuri in a way most people didn't seem to. He's one of the few people that can read Yuuri's silences like a book, who can spot one of his panic attacks coming from a mile away and has a decent success rate with diverting them. Phichit has been a constant pillar of support for Yuuri since he was 19 and Phichit was on the cusp of 16, freshly flown in from Thailand and determined to make his rinkmate his best friend.

Yuuri still feels a twinge of guilt when he thinks about how long it took him to contact Phichit after he'd left Detroit and returned to Hasetsu. He'd been so worried about Phichit's reaction to Yuuri's horrible display in Sochi, had thought in a low moment that Phichit would want to distance himself from that embarrassment. He should have known better, he thinks mournfully, and presses his cheek a little harder into the crown of Phichit's head.

A hand settles at the dip of Yuuri’s waist, squeezing lightly, and the familiarly bony jut of Victor’s chin prods at the place where Yuuri and Phichit’s heads lean together. “Chulanont,” Victor says lightly, teasing. “Are you already trying to steal my fiancé away from me?”

Phichit makes an indignant sound and pulls his head away, craning his neck so that he can look up and back at Victor. “Oh, please,” he says with a dismissive hand wave. “If anyone’s stealing him away, it’s you. He was my Yuuri first, you know.”

Victor’s hand tightens at Yuuri’s waist and he murmurs something in Russian that involves Yuuri’s name and a vaguely threatening tone. Yuuri rolls his eyes and fights down an embarrassed blush when the two of them start bickering good naturedly and a few strangers give their group sideways glances.

Victor must catch sight of Yuuri’s flushed cheeks, because suddenly he darts around to Yuuri’s free side and leans in to bump a small kiss against his cheekbone. “What’s got you so red, darling?” he murmurs. His hand, no longer attached to the slope of Yuuri’s waist, presses in between his shoulder blades before sliding up and tucking itself into the space between Yuuri’s neck and his jacket. Victor’s palm is warm, but the ring is still a brief shock of cold against Yuuri’s skin.

Phichit ‘awws’ and wilts further into Yuuri’s side, still clutching at him like a limpet.

“You’re both awful,” Yuuri says drily, but his lips pull up into a smile.

Victor hums like he’s agreeing, and leans in to skim his lips against the sensitive spot in front of Yuuri’s ear. “I can’t wait to get you alone in our room,” he whispers. His fingers curl in, nails scritching gently at Yuuri’s hairline, and he adds, “where we can _really_ celebrate our engagement.”

“I can _hear you,_ ” Phichit says loudly, and pulls away from Yuuri with his nose scrunched up. “I’m glad I’m not in the room next to yours. I feel sorry for your neighbors.”

“Phichit!” Yuuri scolds, flushing more vibrantly red.

Victor laughs in delight, loud and outright, and says in a mild tone, “He’s got a point, you know. You can be quite loud when you want to be.”

Phichit hoots delightedly when Yuuri makes a strangled noise and darts away from the both of them. “Chris!” he says, loud and desperate while his best friend and fiancé continue to goad one another into being _terrible._ “Can I stay with you tonight?”

He gets a lazy, sensual smirk in response. “I don’t see why not,” Christophe purrs, winking at Yuuri. “My boyfriend will be there as well, but I’m sure Phillipe won’t mind the company.”

Yurio, walking between them as they have this exchange, looks outraged at being caught in the middle. Otabek looks blandly amused, lips curled up on one side. “Oi! Stop talking about your sex lives,” Yurio hisses. “Do I really have to remind you fuckers that I'm here? I don’t want to hear about any of this. It's bad enough Mila tells me fucking _everything_.”

“Sorry,” Chris says smoothly, sounding not very sorry at all. “Sometimes I forget to watch what I say in front of children.”

Yurio makes another infuriated sound, whirling around to swear at Christophe in two different languages while Otabek ducks his head to hide his small laugh. Yuuri sighs and turns back to Victor and Phichit, whose amicable chatting certainly doesn’t bode well for him. Whatever feud they had, however playful, seems to have dissipated in favor of bending their heads together in an ominous display of collusion.

“What are you two up to?” Yuuri asks. He means for it to come out accusingly, but the words trail out of his mouth with a weary tone. Exhaustion is starting to seep into his bones; it's been a long and emotional day, spent darting through crowds with Victor while his anxiety crept at the edges of his mind. Not to mention the tension he'd felt in between purchasing the rings and finding himself under the basilica, scared of Victor's reaction. There had been the thrilling relief of twin rings upon their fingers and the cemented knowledge that he wasn't alone in this, that Victor felt as strongly as he did about spending their lives together (even if it all did seem a little fast), but Yuuri is suddenly and thoroughly exhausted.

He'd been all too happy to extend their evening with a celebratory dinner, but right now he feels the call of his soft bed at the hotel in addition to the urge to escape Yurio’s scowl and Phichit’s playful scheming.

Victor glances back at him and seems to notice the way Yuuri is flagging, if the way he stops in his tracks and waits for Yuuri to step into his side is any indication. “Are you alright?” Victor asks, shuffling his shopping bags from one hand to the other so that he can loop his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders, fingers curling protectively around his upper arm.

“Tired,” is the only explanation Yuuri can give, feeling the truth of it grow with every passing second. The longer he thinks about it, it's definitely less a physical thing and more mental, and all he wants is to get back to their room and push their beds as closely together as possible and kiss Victor under the cover of high thread count sheets.

Victor hums and tugs him closer. He kisses Yuuri's temple, and the end of his nose is a cold point at Yuuri's hairline. “Only two blocks to the hotel,” he mutters, then drops a kiss onto the crown of Yuuri's head. “You can take a hot shower and we can rent a movie and relax, just the two of us.”

Yuuri lets himself wilt into Victor's side and shifts his own shopping bags to his right hand, leaving his left arm free to wrap around Victor's slim waist. “That sounds nice,” he admits, tilting his head into Victor's and letting his eyes drift shut for a few seconds as they walk, trusting Victor not to let him stumble.

He opens his eyes at the feeling of a gentle pressure against his other arm. When he looks over, Phichit is standing beside him, eyebrows raised in question. _‘Are you okay?’_ He asks with a flicker of his eyes across Yuuri's face.

Yuuri flashes him a small smile in gratitude and reassurance. He casts his mind around for a topic of conversation that will sustain them for the remainder of their walk, as well as break the tension he's accidentally created. “How are Guang-Hong and Leo?” Is what he eventually settles upon.

Phichit’s response is immediate; he rolls his eyes and sighs, throwing his hands into the air. “Hopeless as ever,” he declares. “Apparently Leo was sneaking wine under his coach’s nose and got a little drunk at the Cup of China banquet, and he kissed Guang-Hong.”

Yuuri blinks, startled. “I didn't know that happened,” he says, digging through his memories of that night to see if he can find any evidence to what Phichit is telling him. The only thing that comes to mind is how he was so concerned with the closeness of Victor, the press of a warm hand against his lower back, and the way Victor had kept trying to sneak kisses in throughout the course of the evening.

Phichit gives him a _look,_ like he knows exactly what Yuuri’s thinking about. “You were pretty preoccupied,” he says drily. He glances significantly at Victor to really press on his meaning. “Anyway, Guang-Hong has had a crush on Leo since their first competition together, so he's been wanting Leo to kiss him for _years_ , but ever since then Leo's been acting like nothing happened.” Phichit pauses, considering. “Well, to Guang-Hong he is, anyway. Both of them would talk my ears off if I let them. Guang-Hong is miserable thinking Leo doesn't want him, or wants to pretend it didn't happen, but Leo's just waiting until G is eighteen to do anything about it, so they only need to hold themselves together for another few weeks...if I don't kill them both beforehand.”

He lets out a long and steady breath, finishing his tangent. A beat of silence follows.

“Wow,” Victor chuckles into Yuuri's ear. “Why don't they just talk to each other? Be honest about their feelings?”

“Because they're teenagers,” Phichit says gravely, as if he himself doesn't stand just barely on the other side of adolescence. “And they've both wanted this long enough to be idiots about it.”

Victor laughs outright at that, bright and loud as they turn and walk through the doors of their hotel and into the relative quiet of the lobby. “I understand the feeling,” he says, tone wry, pulling away from Yuuri as they make their way to the elevators. He lets his hand drift across Yuuri's shoulders, across his back and down his arm before clasping their hands together. Their fingers knot and Victor gives Yuuri's hand a squeeze.

Yuuri scowls a little in embarrassment and tries to hide it in his scarf, a luxurious cashmere present from Victor on his 24th birthday. He can't stay tucked away for too long, though; the hotel lobby is warm, and in contrast to the winter chill outside, all his layers of clothing are beginning to feel stifling. Still, he waits until they’ve walked through the doors of the lift before he pulls his face out of its hiding place. “Can we please stop talking about that?” he grits out, still mortified that Victor has spent a _year_ chasing after Yuuri and he never even noticed. There’s a larger, more bitterly disappointed part of him that hates that he flat out _can’t remember_ the night he apparently coaxed Victor away from his legendary skating career and into an onsen in sleepy little Hasetsu.

There’s guilt, too, simmering away at the bottom of his gut, knowing that his drunken plea was the reason Victor was taken away from the competition. It had been different when he believed that Victor had walked away of his own volition, but knowing it’s Yuuri’s fault -

He shoves that thought down, buries it deep, and concentrates instead on the feeling of Victor’s hand in his, and the still foreign feel of Victor’s ring against his fingers. He tightens his grip, trying to ground himself in the moment. Victor leans in and kisses his cheek.

“Ugh, stop being so _in love_ ,” Phichit says, but he sounds fond and happy. The elevator comes to a stop on his floor - one below Yuuri and Victor’s own - and he backs out of the doors with a hand out to keep them open just a while longer. He darts forward and wraps Yuuri in a quick, one armed hug. “Yuuri, I’m so happy for you,” he says, and tips up onto his toes to kiss Yuuri high on the cheek.

“Thanks, Phichit,” Yuuri says softly, feeling a silly sort of relief at his words.

“Victor,” Phichit says, pulling away and stepping out of the elevator. “I’ve already thought of three - no, wait, _four_ \- four ways to kill you if you ever hurt him, and at least seven people who will help me hide the body.” He beams as the elevator doors begin to slide shut. “Have a nice night, you two!”

Yuuri’s eyebrows are most of the way up his forehead when the doors slip shut on Phichit’s grin. “Seven?” Is what comes out of his mouth, instead of perhaps an apology for his best friend openly threatening the wellbeing of his fiancé.

Victor, when Yuuri looks towards him, doesn’t seem particularly distressed about Phichit’s parting words. In fact, he looks almost _pleased._ “I’m surprised it isn’t closer to a hundred,” he says, guiding Yuuri through the elevator doors when they open up onto their floor. Yuuri doesn’t know what he means by that; he’s not even certain that he knows seven people that closely, much less a hundred. But Victor leads them straight to their room without saying much beyond, “Come on, now, I want you to myself for a while.”

“You’ve had me to yourself all day,” Yuuri points out, feeling warm. The heavy feeling in his stomach dissipates at the notion that Victor hasn't tired of him, that he's agreed to spend the rest of their lives having these same inane conversations. He accepts the bags Victor hands him as the other man digs through his coat to find his wallet and then the room key.

“Not nearly long enough,” Victor says blithely, as if such a loaded declaration comes easily. He presses a hand to the small of Yuuri’s back and ushers him into the room. Once the door is shut behind them, he relieves Yuuri of his load and haphazardly tosses the bags onto the small sofa tucked into the corner. “Now, then,” he murmurs, stepping close into Yuuri’s space. He reaches up and carefully unwinds the scarf from around Yuuri’s neck, then lets the fabric slither to the floor as he cups Yuuri’s face in his hands and tilts their heads together. “Why don’t I draw you a bath, hmm? We walked far today, and you’ve got a long two days ahead of you, and I think you deserve a bit of relaxation.”

Yuuri pauses. The suggestion sounds good - sounds wonderful, actually - but there’s something he wants that isn’t quite what Victor’s got in mind. “Victor,” he starts, but Victor’s quick to interrupt.

“Yuuri,” he says softly, fingers pulling at the buttons of Yuuri’s overcoat. “Let me pamper you a little. We bought all of those bath soaps today, after all. Let me do this for you, since you’ve done so much for me today.” He lifts Yuuri’s hand to his mouth and kisses his ring, a punctuation to his statement. The look on his face is so nakedly yearning, so soft and full of love as he looks at Yuuri with his striking blue eyes glinting in the low light of the hotel room, that Yuuri’s breath catches in his chest.

“I was only going to ask if you’d take a bath with me,” Yuuri says, reaching up with his left hand to tuck a few stray silver hairs behind Victor’s ear. He leans into his touch, eyes drifting closed briefly. “The tub is large enough for the both of us, and...and it would be a shame to let all of those expensive soaps be used only for me.”

There’s a pause while Victor, wide eyed and stunned, absorbs his words. Then: “You’re so _smart_ ,” Victor tells him, fervent and low, a beatific smile tugging up the corners of his lips before he darts in to steal a kiss off of Yuuri’s. “My clever Yuuri. Моя звезда..”

“What does that mean?” Yuuri whispers. He’s still mostly hopeless when it comes to Russian, but he's learned to recognize a decent handful of words thanks to Victor's insistence on murmuring sweet things to him in his native tongue. He knows the words for ‘darling’, ‘dear’, ‘sunshine’, and ‘my love’. This is a new word, but he recognizes the tone of Victor's voice well enough by now to know he's used some sort of endearment. If he's not careful, he's going to develop a Pavlovian response to that syrupy dip of Victor’s voice; it almost always leads to something that makes Yuuri breathless, that leaves him flushed and wanting and unable to keep from pulling Victor further down into his orbit.

“My star,” Victor answers immediately. He kisses Yuuri softly between his eyebrows. “Get undressed, love. Slip into a robe while I fill the bath. You liked the lavender soap the best, yes?”

He _had_ liked that one the best, but he can't remember mentioning anything about it to Victor. He remembers lifting the cap on the liquid soap and humming as the delicate herbal scent had wafted up, but Victor had been two feet away inspecting a monstrous candle that promised to be nauseatingly sweet in odor. It makes his chest cinch tightly, this realization that Victor always seems to be paying attention to Yuuri, even if it's only in his peripheral. He loves Victor _so much,_ could never hope to find the words to express the magnitude and depth of his feelings, because every time he tries it's as though the sentiment lodges in his throat, still scared of rejection or lack of reciprocation. Even with the matching gold glint on their fingers, he can't quite make himself speak up about everything he's feeling, so he settles for a quiet, “I did.”

Victor’s smile widens in a way that never fails to remind Yuuri of an overexcited puppy, all boundless energy and overflowing happiness. He can't believe that he, Yuuri Katsuki, who was barely a blip on the radar of the skating world before this season, can make Victor Nikiforov look so thrilled just from a simple discussion about bubble bath soap. “I'll start it up right now,” Victor says, drawing away and moving quickly to the bathroom, shedding his jacket as he goes. “I think there are jets in the tub as well! We'll be relaxed in no time.” Unceremoniously, he pulls both his sweater and the shirt underneath off and over his head in a single fluid movement. They join his peacoat on the floor, and he starts in on his trousers.

Yuuri’s mouth dries up abruptly. Victor's half nude, cutting a lithe figure with his sculpted upper body on display and the cut of his hips becoming more and more revealed in the most casual and aggravatingly effective strip of all time. His hair is mussed from the drag of his shirts against it, and his cheeks are rouging up with the anticipation of joining Yuuri in a private bath, which is something they've never done before.

Yuuri knows, and has done for a long time, that he loves Victor so fiercely he sometimes feels it rattle around in the marrow of his bones, but it's times like this that serve as a stark reminder that he lusts after Victor just as desperately.

It's more of a struggle than he'd like to admit just to get himself focused enough to finish stepping out of his clothing and to slip into the luxuriously fluffy bathrobes provided by the hotel; his mind full of Victor, and the promise of where the night is going to take them. The anticipation of a private bath with Victor - an act that seems almost incomprehensibly intimate to Yuuri - has his fingers trembling. He can hear Victor moving around in the bathroom, the muted sound of rushing water as the tub fills, and the low cadence of Victor humming to himself.

Yuuri pushes open the bathroom door and his glasses cloud with steam almost immediately. He blinks in surprise, and feels more than he sees when Victor steps in front of him with a chuckle. Fingers, long and gentle, pull at the frames of Yuuri's glasses, sliding them down his nose. “You look lovely,” Victor says, setting the glasses on the countertop with a plastic clack of sound.

Yuuri blinks again, because even though his vision has become significantly more blurry, there's no mistaking the fact that Victor is completely nude and standing in front of Yuuri with his usual confident grace. The sight isn't a novelty, and hasn't been for a long time (not since that first day when Victor stood up from the hot spring, flushed and toned, streams of water snaking their way between the contours of his muscles), but Yuuri’s mouth goes dry despite all the moisture in the air.

“The robe suits you,” Victor continues, seemingly oblivious to Yuuri's staring. “However, I’m sorry to tell you we'll have to remove it so that we can begin our bath.”

Yuuri comes back to himself enough to roll his eyes. Victor doesn't sound sorry in the slightest, his long and elegant fingers already undoing the loose knot Yuuri had secured in the robe’s sash. Victor slips his hand between the lapels, fingertips prodding into Yuuri's sternum and sliding down towards his abdomen, parting the fabric with an appreciative hum as it bares Yuuri's midsection and groin to his hungry gaze. Victor slides his hands between the cotton and the curve of Yuuri’s shoulders next, pushing the fabric back and down until it slips off of Yuuri completely and puddles soundlessly around his feet.

Victor gives a long, sharp sounding inhale through his nose at the sight of Yuuri completely nude before him. Yuuri has his insecurities with his body: his tendency to gain weight too easily and never quite lose it all despite his best efforts, the stretch marks on his hips and thighs, how small his frame is compared to Victor’s broad shoulders and tapered waist. But Victor’s naturally slender, was blessed with those genes, while Yuuri has had to fight for this body more than once. He’s insecure, yes, but somehow also proud, not the least because of the darkly pleased look that comes over Victor whenever he manages to get Yuuri naked.

Victor swears under his breath in Russian and leans in for a chaste, if lingering, kiss to Yuuri’s mouth. “I used the lavender bubble bath,” he murmurs. His large hands settle on the subtle curve of Yuuri’s waist.

Yuuri peers past him at the bath, squinting at the bubbles that make up the indistinct, blurry but considerable mountain of white he can see in the tub. “Did you...use _all_ of it?” he asks warily. He wouldn’t put it past Victor to overzealously dump the entire bottle’s worth of soap under the tap.

Victor just makes a ‘tsk’ sound at him and guides Yuuri towards the bath, careful to hold onto his hands as he climbs in, lest he slip and fall. Yuuri settles into the water with a contented sigh - Victor’s managed to get the temperature exactly right, and the scent of the lavender is soothing and strong without being overwhelming. Victor slips into the tub behind him, knees pressing briefly into Yuuri’s back before he extends his legs on either side of Yuuri’s hips. His hands find the slippery skin of Yuuri’s midsection underwater and press in, urging Yuuri back into the ‘V’ of his legs so that they can lounge together, back to front.

Yuuri tilts his head back onto Victor’s shoulder and lets his hands sink beneath the bubbles and the water until they’re folded gently over Victor’s own. Now that the tap is no longer running, he can hear the faint sound of music trickling its way out of Victor’s phone and the occasional muted crackle of the bubbles popping. He can feel Victor’s heart pounding beneath his shoulder blade, and the stirring of his every outward breath against Yuuri’s temple.

He’s not certain how long they sit there together. Between the aromatic bath soap and the heat, and the utter bliss of feeling Victor’s naked body pressed against him, it doesn’t surprise him that Yuuri dozes lightly. However much time passes, he completely loses track, but it’s long enough that Victor feels the need to shift and break the silence.

“Can I wash your hair?” he whispers, leaning in to skim a kiss over the highest point of Yuuri's cheek.

Yuuri's eyes blink open. He tilts his head around so that he can see Victor a little better, and is surprised to find Victor looking shy, and even a bit nervous. Yuuri remembers the dig and drag of Victor's fingers through his hair at the shower station by the beach in Hasetsu, has felt the gentle scratch of Victor drawing a comb through his hair as he styles it for competition. But this, what Victor's suggesting, is a brand new sort of intimacy somehow beyond anything Yuuri has imagined since the start of their romantic relationship, and though he never anticipated such a request, it doesn't surprise him to find that he _craves_ what Victor has proposed. Even more so, that he wants suddenly and urgently to return the favor.

He presses his nose to the underside of Victor's chin and closes his eyes, not so confident that he feels he can keep them open as he gives his answer. “Only if you let me do the same.”

Victor's chest hitches beneath his back. “Alright,” he rasps. The next moment, his body shifts as he reaches for the ludicrously expensive shampoo he'd snuck into their shopping basket. Yuuri reaches forward and pulls the hand held shower attachment from its perch and runs his head under a gentle stream of water; just enough to wet his hair. It takes a moment to manuever around in the tub - spacious though it may be, he still faces a struggle turning his body around so that he’s facing Victor, knees pressing into the porcelain walls - and carefully bows his head.

He closes his eyes when he hears the muted snap of the shampoo bottle opening, followed by the sound of Victor squeezing some out into his palm. Underneath the heady aromatics of the lavender, Yuuri can smell rosemary and mint even before Victor's hands sink into his hair and the shampoo’s scent grows stronger.

Victor cradles Yuuri's skull in his hands, his fingertips a gentle but persistent pressure and he massages the shampoo into Yuuri's hair with soothing circular motions. He begins by the crown of Yuuri's head and moves forward, following the edges of his hairline and ensuring every centimeter of Yuuri's hair is cleaned. Once he's satisfied, his fingers drift around the shell of Yuuri's ears and towards the nape of his neck. Yuuri can't stop the groan the erupts when Victor prods into the knot of stress that sits at the base of his skull.

Victor pauses at the sound for half a second, and then resumes his attentions with renewed enthusiasm. His fingers press against the knot in an alternating rhythm, his thumbs slotting against the front of Yuuri's ears and applying just enough pressure to keep Yuuri's steadily slumping head upright.

Yuuri drifts, lulled into a haze by the lavender-scented heat curling up from the water’s surface and the ministrations of Victor’s hands, and doesn't emerge until Victor's touch withdraws, leaving Yuuri's boneless body to list forwards.

He hums, a displeased and questioning note that reverberates against the bathroom tiles, but Victor hushes him gently. He leans into Yuuri’s space, damp shoulder pressing into his forehead, and just far enough that he can reach past Yuuri for the shower head extensions. He turns the tap on and  runs the stream of water over his own kneecap to test the temperature, and after a few seconds nods to himself in satisfaction.

The gentle spray of water is cool enough to wake Yuuri out of his daze, but not so cold that it's jarring or unpleasant. It's actually a nice contrast to the oppressive heat of the bath, so Yuuri closes his eyes and resolves to enjoy the rest of this moment while Victor rinses soap from his hair.

Eventually - _unfortunately_ \- the stream of water stops as Victor apparently deems Yuuri free of any remaining suds. “You’re tired,” Victor says softly, accent thick and rolling, soft and full of love. “Don’t worry about me, Любимый. Let’s just get you to bed.”

He makes a move as if he’s going to hang up the shower extension, starting to lean past Yuuri once more, but stops when Yuuri presses wet hands into his chest, fingers spread across the delicate ridge of his collarbone.

“I’m not tired,” Yuuri says, and despite the slight slur in his voice and the slow blink of his eyes as he tries to focus on Victor’s face, he knows he’s telling the truth. It’s been a long and busy day, and the next two promise to be even longer and busier, but he wants so badly to have a chance to take care of Victor for once that he would stay up all night if he needed to.

He doesn’t know how to articulate any of that, though; not that it matters, since Victor’s eyes dart across his face and find something there that makes him smile and relax into a slump, trusting Yuuri to hold him up. “Alright,” Victor breathes. He stands abruptly, water sloshing at the sides of the tub and making the mountains of bubbles sway. There's a peculiar moment where he starts to edge past Yuuri, who averts his eyes and scoots towards the back of the tub, careful not to fixate on the view that Victor provides as he changes their positions.

Victor settles back into the water with care, fingers gripping tightly at the edges of the tub, and only once his groin is beneath the suds can Yuuri bear to look at him again without wanting to drag them both down and displace a little water. Victor gives him a happy, soft grin, and tips his head forward eagerly.

His hair is dark gray, damp from his wet hands pushing it away from his forehead, but still mostly dry. Yuuri gulps at the supplicating gesture, and forces himself to concentrate on the spray of water against his palm as he attempts to get the water temperature to Victor's liking.

Victor likes to take baths are just on the outside edge of scalding, which is probably part of the reason that he loves bathing in the hot springs so much. Yuuri doesn't really know how he can stand it, but when the water has verged on becoming uncomfortably warm, he runs the gentle stream of it over Victor's head and shoulders. The other man sighs happily and wilts a little bit under the pressure and the heat.

Yuuri reaches forward and cards a hand through the wet and silky strands of Victor's hand, trying to distribute the water so it stops sluicing off, and the noise that comes out of Victor's throat is guttural and echos off the walls. Thrilled and emboldened, and despite the red blush that creeps at the edge of Victor's ears that has nothing to do with the bath, Yuuri curls his fingers inward so that his nails scritch against Victor's scalp.

"Oh, my God," Victor moans, head tilting into the motion, trying to follow Yuuri's fingers as they drag away and whimpering happily when he sinks them back into his hair. "That feels amazing."

"We've barely gotten started," Yuuri says, but he feels inordinately pleased with Victor's reaction to even the bare minimum of pampering.

"It doesn't matter," Victor insists as he awkwardly scoots closer. He settles himself in between Yuuri's feet where they're planted against the bottom of the tub, and unfolds his own endless limbs until he's draped them over the top of Yuuri's thighs and his ankles are pressing into Yuuri's butt and lower back. Like this, Yuuri can feel the stirrings of Victor's erection against his own mostly-soft cock. He suspects he won't stay that way for long, not if Victor continues to make those sorts of noises as Yuuri washes his hair.

He busies himself with the task at hand, willing desperately for some self control even as his lower belly begins to warm with a familiar heat, and plucks the bottle of pricey shampoo off of the ledge of the tub. A carefully portioned dollop gathers in the center of his cupped palm, and once the bottle has found its way back to safety, he spreads the gel between his two hands before he sinks them into Victor's hair.

The scent of rosemary and mint rises above the heady lavender once more as the shampoo froths up beneath Yuuri's ministrations, hands and fingers trailing careful, purposeful tracks through the impossibly natural silver strands of Victor's hair. Victor keeps making high, keening noises in the back of his throat as Yuuri drags short nails across his scalp, lets loose a long and crackling groan when Yuuri tries to repay the favor of a massage and presses in on the sensitive spot at the back of Victor's head where his stress gathers.

Victor wilts in a way that Yuuri's never seen outside of moments of dramatic flair; he collapses in on himself, onto Yuuri, mumbling in incoherent Russian under his breath, saying things that Yuuri can't understand interspersed with what he can (endearments, curse words, and the particular sort of reverence that curls its way around his name whenever Victor uses it).

"You're an angel," Victor slurs in English, about five minutes into Yuuri's lengthy shampooing session. "You're amazing."

"It's only a bath," Yuuri demurs, but his heart is pounding in his chest.

"No," Victor says, still sounding dreamy and honest. "It's really not just the bath. It's everything, Yuuri. You're wonderful."

Yuuri's breath hitches. He can't suppress the urge to lean forward and kiss Victor on the forehead. His mouth gets wet, he gets a few suds up his nose, and there's a strong taste of rosemary and soap sitting on his lips now, but he doesn't care. He has Victor tilting into him, body listless and trusting, and he feels like he's on the verge of exploding from happiness.

"I think you're wonderful, too," he admits, quiet and low. "Now close your eyes while I rinse your hair, or you'll get soap in them."

Victor hums and sits up straight before tipping back, the water in the tub making him light enough that it's not a particular strain for Yuuri to hold him up with just a hand pressed between his shoulder blades. He's still more or less straddling Yuuri's lap, but now he's also bent back in an arch, chest protruding and neck a slender column as his spine curves down towards the water.

Carefully, doing his best not to let any rivulets of soap find their way near Victor's eyes, Yuuri rinses the shampoo out of his hair, watching as his head goes from sudsy white to a gunmetal gray the same color as Victor's eyebrows, as his eyelashes.

"I remember the day you cut your hair," Yuuri tells him, voice pitched low. His voice still carries, bouncing off the tiled walls and returning to his own ears, tinny. "I think Yuuko was the only one more upset than I was."

Victor hums, nose scrunching up as a small stream of water finds its way across his eyelid. "You would have been...sixteen? Seventeen, when that happened?"

"Seventeen," Yuuri confirms, rubbing a thumb across the divot in between Victor's eyebrows, smoothing out the wrinkle there and wiping away some moisture that's gathered. "It was at the beginning of December, just before the Grand Prix that year. You went to Beijing with long hair and by your short program, it was up to your ears."

"Yakov was so angry," Victor says, with the gleeful sort of distance that speaks of recalling a fond memory. "Lillia even moreso, I think. But I was so tired of the upkeep - long hair is a bit of a pain, you know - and I kept getting questions about my 'signature look' and I was young, and impulsive, and wanted to prove to everyone that I was more than what they saw, so about...ten minutes? Ten minutes, if that, before my short program, I snuck away into the bathroom with a pair of scissors. I thought Yakov was going to have a heart attack."

"So that's why it looked so choppy," Yuuri teases, laughing when Victor pouts. "You've gotten much better at hairstyling since, I think."

Victor blinks one eye open and squints up at Yuuri. "On other people," he agrees. "I think I'll let the professionals handle my hair. I learned my lesson."

Yuuri makes another soft noise of agreement, still running his hand through Victor's hair even though it's long since been cleaned of any suds. "You know," he says, nails scratching against Victor's scalp. "In Japan, washing your lover's hair is...it's very intimate."

Both of Victor's eyes open now, and he tilts his chin down, trying to get a better look at Yuuri from an unfortunate angle.

"The first time you sat me down in your room and started combing through my hair," Yuuri continues, and he feels a shiver crawl up his spine at the memory. "I thought I might stop breathing. It felt like a dream. It was..."

"Wonderful," Victor breathes, and reaches out with one hand to grasp the edge of the tub, and pushes the other against the floor so that he can leverage himself into a sitting position. Yuuri doesn't move back, and so he finds himself nose to nose with the man he loves, perched in his lap with his impossibly long legs still wrapped around Yuuri's body. "It was wonderful. It was the closest you'd let me get to you in such a long time. I knew immediately how I wanted to style your hair for your performances, but I kept fussing because I didn't want that moment to end."

Yuuri closes his eyes and leans forward, catching Victor's mouth in a kiss that's soft and wet, their lips damp from the water and the steam in the air. "I'm sorry I don't remember that night at the banquet," he whispers when he pulls back, the words little more than a breath against Victor's cheek as he skims another kiss across flushed skin. "I wish...I wish I could, Vitya."

He's far enough away that he sees the way that Victor's eyes widen at the name, and barely has enough time to find the darkening blush on Victor's cheeks sweet before Victor lunges forward, hands burying themselves into Yuuri's hair and his mouth wide and hot against Yuuri's own.

"Say it again," he demands, smearing sloppy kisses down the wet column of Yuuri's neck, teeth skimming over his collarbone before coming back up to nip at the corner of his jaw. "Yuuri, красавец, say it again, please."

"Vitya," Yuuri says, fingers curling over the slick rounds of Victor's shoulders. "Vitya."

Victor groans, low and deep in his chest, before he's kissing Yuuri again, deep and wet and feverish. "Yuuri," he chants, climbing further into Yuuri's lap, ankles crossing at the small of his back. "Yuuri, _Yuuri_."

He can feel where Victor's hard cock where it's pressed against his stomach, an insistent line of heat that's noticeable even with the high temperature of the water. It presses against Yuuri's own erection, and the water makes them slide together easily. Yuuri gasps into Victor's mouth and grips at his waist when Victor gives a particularly well-done writhe of his hips.

"I don't care that you don't remember the banquet," Victor tells him in between furious kisses and the distracting gyrations he's performing against Yuuri. "I don't care, Yuuri; it was only one night and we have...God, Yuuri, we have an entire lifetime of nights to make up for it." He pulls back and grabs at Yuuri's right hand, lifting it to his mouth and pressing a reverent, fervent kiss against the gold circle that sits above his knuckle. "I love you so much."

Yuuri rocks forward, his face tucking into the long spread of Victor's neck. "I love you," he says hoarsely. And then, because he can't quite resist the reaction it seems to warrant, he adds, "Vitya."

Victor whimpers. He reaches behind himself to pull the plug on the bathtub, sending the water swirling quickly down the drain, and after one last kiss, heaves himself into a standing position.

It brings his erection directly in line with Yuuri's face, standing tall and proud and flushed, a gleaming bead of liquid at the head that's too thick to be water. Victor's above him, looking down and breathing hard, and when Yuuri slips his hands up the toned muscle of Victor's thighs, they tremble. The bath probably isn't the safest place for such things, but Yuuri's mouth is watering at the sight of Victor so close, so intimately bared to him, and he can't resist.

He parts his lips and closes his eyes, and takes Victor onto his tongue.

"Yuuri!" Victor gasps, knees buckling ever so slightly, and one hand gripping tightly at the dark, wet strands that are still dripping water down Yuuri's back. Yuuri closes his lips around Victor's length, painfully mindful of his teeth, and sucks gently at the head, tongue flicking forward to lap up that gleam of liquid that had caught his eye before.

Victor makes a high-pitched and reedy noise from above him that's followed by a tumultuous amount of words that Yuuri can half-identify as swears. He carefully pushes Yuuri back until his cock slips out of Yuuri's mouth to bob in the air, almost angry in color and looking uncomfortably hard.

"Did...did you not like it?" Yuuri asks, feeling unsure as he squints up at Victor's flushed and panting form. "I know I've never...I haven't, before, but I can do better."

Victor groans and lifts one hand to grind the heel of his palm against his eye. He says something in Russian and then, almost like an after-thought of a translation, says, "You are killing me. You're so amazing, Yuuri, you feel so good, but we need to get to a bed. As lovely as it would be to have my way with you in this bathtub, you're competing tomorrow and I can't risk either of us falling over and injuring ourselves."

"Oh," Yuuri says, blinking around at their surroundings. There's an awful lot of water that's been displaced onto the floor from Victor's abrupt motion to stand, and not a lot of places for hands or feet to grip onto if needed. "That makes sense. So it wasn't...I mean, it was okay? What I was doing?"

Victor makes another agitated sound in the back of his throat and steps out of the tub onto the bathmat that's been laid across the floor. It's soaked by now, and the water running down Victor's body adds to the mess. "It was amazing, Yuuri. I was about three seconds from coming all over your face, and then we'd have to wash you all over again."

Yuuri feels his face heat up as he contemplates that image: him, on his knees in front of Victor, face striped with his come, clean and dirty all at once. Marked by Victor in such an intimate way and Victor, shaking and trembling above him, undeniably his.

Yuuri's hand drifts below the rapidly falling water level to circle around his cock when a rush of arousal pulses through him, too strong to ignore, and Victor's gaze falls to where he's touching himself.

"Bed," Victor commands in hoarse Russian, and reaches out his hands to help Yuuri climb out of the tub. He does so half-regretfully, because it means he has to stop touching himself even though he's positively aching. It seems worth it soon enough when Victor takes a long, hard look at his naked, dripping body and bites out, "Fuck, Yuuri, bed, _now_."

Despite the urgency that's running hot through both of their bodies, they're careful as Yuuri steps out of the tub and they make their way across the wet tiled floor, trying not to rush, lest one of them slip and fall. Once both of their feet have made contact with the plush carpeting of their hotel room, though, it's a completely different story. Victor spins around and pulls Yuuri to him in a motion that's almost too elegant, considering the desperation burning in his eyes, and then slips both of his hands underneath Yuuri's ass to haul him up. Yuuri jumps with the motion, making up for the height difference between them by wrapping his legs around Victor's hips and bringing their faces level so that they can kiss, messy and hot with a generous amount of tongue.

Victor's hands are large enough on their own, and Yuuri's build is significantly more slight than his, which all adds up to the wonderful sensation of each of Victor's hands being able to span one of Yuuri's asscheeks. Victor's grip is strong and kneading, fingers slipping along the space between his cheeks and coming so close to where Yuuri wants them most.

It's not a good idea before a competition, he knows; they've never done anything like that before, and he can't risk being sore tomorrow, not when it feels as though so much is riding on him winning a gold medal, but Yuuri can't help but want, fierce and deep, to feel Victor inside of him.

The backs of Victor's knees make contact with the mattress, which startles Yuuri a little since he hadn't even realized they were moving, as caught up in his fantasies as he was. Victor turns them around and bends, depositing Yuuri on the bed, and continues down until Yuuri is forced to unwind his legs from around his waist in favor of perching the backs of his thighs over Victor's shoulders.

Victor's large hands are tight around Yuuri's waist, fingers digging into the slight pudge that lingers, and he buries his nose in the fine line of hair that trickles from Yuuri's bellybutton down towards his groin. Yuuri slips shaking fingers into the damp strands of Victor's hair that are pushed back at his temples, twining them between his fingers. "Victor," he starts, but the name is all he manages because in between one breath and the next, Victor's mouth sinks down on him.

He gasps, shoulders curling in on a violent reflex, and he suspects that it's only Victor's bracing grip that prevents him from choking the other man completely with the involuntary thrust his hips make when he finds his cock surrounded by soft, wet heat. He swears quietly, under his breath and in Japanese, and squeezes his eyes shut. He concentrates on the sound of Victor's breathing - loud and sharp through his nose - and on trying to calm his own racing heart. "Victor," he says feebly, accent curving around the name in a way that adds an extra vowel to the end.

Victor pulls off slowly, his tongue an agonizing drag against the underside of Yuuri's cock, and gives Yuuri a few lazy pulls as he looks up and whispers, "Call me Vitya."

On any given day, and at any given moment, Yuuri is mostly helpless to deny Victor any request. Now, with his hips chasing the phantom feeling of Victor's mouth around him and the orgasm that's already sitting, sparking and tight, at the base of his spine, he finds himself completely at the other man's mercy. "Vitya," he murmurs, and then Victor's on him once more.

Yuuri knows, thanks to a handful of long conversations that were half-whispered in the middle of the night, that Victor's romantic experiences just barely outreach his own. Only three boyfriends to speak of - none entirely serious, given Victor's dedication to ice skating and his limited free time - and only two of them lovers. He hadn't gone into details about either relationship, not when their own was still fragile and new, raw in a way that left Yuuri wanting to pretend that Victor was only ever his, but it had been enough to know that Victor was experienced in ways that Yuuri wasn't.

He's never had a blowjob before this, has never given one prior to the taste of Victor that he took in the bathroom not too long ago, but as he watches with shuddering awe as Victor presses down until his lips are at the base of Yuuri's cock, he can confidently say that this is the best blowjob in the entire world.

It's sloppy and a bit too wet, Victor's mouth wide open and the back of his throat fluttering around Yuuri as he swallows reflexively, and when he pulls back there's the barest hint of teeth skimming across sensitive flesh, and it's likely to be over not long after it's begun if the way Yuuri's thighs and stomach keep clenching are any indication, but it's utterly perfect all the same.

A few strands of hair fall across Victor's forehead when he tilts his head to look up at Yuuri, eyes wide and bright blue and feverish, pink lips stretched around his cock while a small trickle of spit slips from the corner of his mouth. Yuuri strokes the hair away and Victor's eyes fall shut once more, leaning into the gentle touch.

English escapes him. When he speaks, words full of love and praise and awe of the beauty of the man before him, it's all in Japanese, save for a name. "Vitya," Yuuri says, and Victor groans around him. He wracks his brain, desperate to find the words that both of them will understand. "Both...the bed. Want...to you, too. Please."

Victor, having paused halfway down Yuuri's cock, blinks up at him. His eyes are wide, irises blown out by arousal until Yuuri can barely see a ring of brilliant blue around them. It seems Yuuri isn't the only one having trouble with his second language, because Victor pulls off slowly, a thin trail of saliva glinting in the space between his swollen lips and the head of Yuuri's erection. He grips Yuuri in one hand and strokes, the motion eased by the not inconsiderable amount of moisture his own mouth has left behind and the pre-come that weeps freely from the tip of Yuuri's cock. "Yuuri," he murmurs, and bends down to suck a bruising spot into the sensitive flesh of Yuuri's inner thigh.

"Vitya," Yuuri tries again, pulling at Victor's hair until his mouth unlatches from the thin skin and Victor's face is turned to him. "Please get on the bed."

"Why?" Victor whines, doing his best to lean in and nuzzle down into the skin of Yuuri's stomach. He's squirming a little on his knees, and Yuuri realizes that part of it is that Victor's snaked a hand down to touch himself, a loose fist quickly twisting its way around his own length.

Yuuri's mouth goes dry at the sight, and then fills back up with saliva when he says, "I want to put my mouth on you."

Victor freezes at his feet, hand not even moving, before he scrambles upwards and pushes into Yuuri for a hard kiss, knocking them both down against the mattress.

They kiss furiously for a minute, both of them desperate and riding the high of an imminent orgasm. Yuuri can taste himself on the back of Victor's tongue, and it makes him whimper and clench his hands into the meat of Victor's shoulders. His hips thrust up, still-slick cock rubbing up against Victor's own, and Victor wrenches away from him with a groan that sounds agonized. “Up,” he insists, pulling himself off and towards the center of the bed with what seems like a considerable effort. “Come on, stay close to me.”

Yuuri’s breath catches.

It takes a little bit of maneuvering and a few giggles shared between them when hands and elbows find themselves in awkward places, but eventually they manage to lay themselves more or less in the center of the mattress, Victor on his back and his feet pressed against the headboard while Yuuri curls above him, knees on either side of Victor’s head and his own mouth ghosting breaths across the jut of Victor’s hips. He feels so strangely nervous, stretched above Victor like this, his own line of sight filled completely with the stiff, thick erection that Victor’s sporting.

He reaches out and presses a hand down against Victor’s groin, the base of his cock pressing at the the ‘v’ between Yuuri’s thumb and index finger. His fingers curl together into a loose approximation of a fist, lifting Victor’s drooling cock away from his stomach so that Yuuri can take a closer look. 

Victor is pale - moreso than Yuuri - and it makes the blood that rushes underneath the skin of his erection seem even darker, makes his need look more urgent. He’s thick, Yuuri’s fingertips barely touching as he firms up his grip, and long enough that Yuuri knows he most likely won’t be able to get his mouth all the way down the same way Victor had done to him. Then again, Victor’s told him a handful of times before that he doesn’t have a gag reflex, whereas Yuuri very much does, so that was probably a moot hope to begin with, anyway.

He shivers when Victor guides Yuuri’s cock into his mouth, pulling it against his tongue and sucking firmly on the withdraw, and cranes his own neck to return the favor.

Victor tastes bitter - like pre-come and remnants of soap - but the skin of him is velvet soft and delicate against Yuuri’s lips and the flat of his tongue. He can only manage to push his mouth halfway down the shaft before his throat twitches, so he compensates by twisting his hand around the base and tugging in time with every pull of his mouth. It seems too dry, so he opens his mouth a little wider on the next upwards movement of his head and lets some of his spit slip past his lips, rolling down until it meets his fist.

It’s not the neatest blowjob in the world, but Yuuri will admit to having watched enough porn to understand the basic mechanics of what he’s meant to do, and Victor seems happy enough if the thin, high whines that are coming from the other end of the bed are any indication. Yuuri sucks him down with renewed vigor, doing his best to keep his teeth tucked behind his lips.

Victor pulls off of him with a lewd sucking sound, Yuuri’s cock popping out of his mouth and bobbing back towards his bellybutton. “Yuuri,” he groans, hips flexing under Yuuri’s hands, his own grip on the back’s of Yuuri’s thighs almost punishingly tight. A string of Russian curse words and endearments follow, words that Yuuri has heard often enough to recognize by now. “You feel so good,” Victor slurs in thickly accented English, one hand leaving Yuuri’s leg to slip between his thighs and trail fingers down his cock. Yuuri whimpers around the head of Victor’s in return.

Victor crooks his fingers against the heavy dangle of Yuuri’s balls and draws them back into his mouth, laving a tonguing kiss against the delicate skin. Yuuri’s hips reflexively push back, chasing the heat and glorious feeling. Victor pulls off of him with a low chuckle, knuckles trailing back over wet skin to press into the fleshy space behind where he’s just had his mouth. He presses up and rubs, and it’s like an electric shock races up Yuuri’s spine.

He pulls off Victor long enough to collapse forward, forehead digging into the meat of Victor’s thigh, before his competitive nature rears its head and he licks his way back to the erection in his hand. He pushes at the limits of his own gag reflex, throat convulsing around Victor’s cock and an obscene amount of spit drooling out of his mouth, making everything wet and loud.

But Victor isn’t a world champion for nothing, and his own need to surprise and not to be outdone rears its head when he leans up and swipes the flat of his tongue against Yuuri’s hole.

Yuuri, taken completely by surprise, jolts forward and almost chokes himself on Victor’s cock. He pulls off with a weak cough and an even weaker, “Vitya!”

He can _feel_ the way Victor smiles against him, mouth curling up against the spread of Yuuri’s asscheeks, and that’s all the warning he gets before Victor presses up again, licking into him with enthusiasm.

It’s so far out of the realm of anything Yuuri has ever imagined being done to him - by Victor or by anyone, frankly - that the sensation leaves him breathless and trembling, weakly attempting to continue blowing Victor even as every press of tongue against him pushes him closer and closer towards orgasm. He has both hands firmly holding Yuuri’s cheeks apart to make access easier, and Yuuri’s hips are dipped down in such a way that his erection rubs against Victor’s chest with every meagre, helpless thrust of Yuuri’s hips.

He’s chasing a feeling that’s been coiled up inside of him ever since he slipped the ring onto Victor’s finger, the same ring he can feel pressing hard into the flesh of his ass as Victor pulls him apart. He twists his hand on an upward stroke as his mouth goes down, kissing the circle of gold on his own hand, and is abruptly struck by the realization that this - Victor, a bed together, late nights drowning in each other - is his to have for the rest of his life.

He comes like that, cock sandwiched between Victor’s body and his own, Victor’s tongue pressing into him like a lewd kiss in his most private area, pulling his own mouth off of Victor’s cock with a guttural cry of the other man’s name and chattered swearing in Japanese. He can feel the hot spatter of his own come as he paints it across Victor’s chest and smears it between their heaving stomachs.

It’s the most he can do, once he’s collapsed mostly to the side but still on top of Victor, to continue his weak strokes of the other man’s cock as he trembles his way down from orgasm, heart racing and breath stuttering. He’s never come so hard in his entire life, and his thighs can’t seem to stop shaking.

He moans in protest when Victor slips out of his grasp and pulls himself out from underneath Yuuri so that he can kneel on the bed. With one hand circled firmly around the base of his cock, Victor uses the other to urge Yuuri onto his back, which feels like a considerable effort, given the jelly-like state of his limbs. They manage it somehow, and Victor is quick to straddle Yuuri’s thighs, bending forward to plant a hand next to Yuuri’s head while the other jerks himself off at a furious pace.

“I love you so much,” Victor tells him, sweating and panting above him, hair all over the place and his eyes wild. “You’re so fucking perfect for me, Yuuri, _fuck_. You were made for me.”

“Yours,” Yuuri slurs in agreement, eyes fixed to Victor’s face and his mind still sluggish from coming. “Yours, Vitya.”

Victor makes a sound above him that’s closer to a sob than a groan, hand flying over himself as he comes with a wrenching cry of Yuuri’s name and a hot stripe of liquid that paints its way up to Yuuri’s collarbone and adds to the mess already on his stomach.

Victor releases himself with twitching, jerky movements, and carefully folds down on top of Yuuri until they’re pressed together chest to chest, sticky and overly warm. Yuuri circles his arms around Victor’s sweaty back anyway and holds him as tightly as he can manage while Victor halos Yuuri’s head with his arms and presses trembling kisses into the damp hair at his temple.

“I love you,” Victor whispers to him, sounding as awed and scared as the first time he’d ever said the words. “I love you, Yuuri.”

“ _Ai shiteru,_ ” Yuuri says, finding more strength and meaning in his native tongue as he tries to convey the force of his emotions to Victor. _Forever_ , everything within him cries. _Let me have you forever._ “I love you.” 

They curl there on the center of the bed, pressed together and kissing intermittently, until Victor pulls back with a light grimace and a glance between them. “It seems we may need that second shower after all.”

Yuuri laughs, still feeling shaky and light, and draws Victor back in despite the mess.

 

 

**ooo**

 

 

Yuuri’s no stranger to the weight of gold, but he’s even more familiar with the heaviness of failure.

His fumbled quad flip from his short program is burned into his mind, the sting made harsher by Yurio’s own resounding success and resulting world record. There’s a bitter taste on the back of his tongue when he thinks back on his performance, on how he’d sacrificed emotion for technicality, how he’d let his inspiration slip past in favor of overthinking possible points and scores until he’d failed not only Victor, but himself.

Fourth place isn’t a bad standing going into the free skate, but it isn’t enough. It’s not enough to win him gold, and not enough to prove to those who said he was a waste of Victor’s time that they were wrong.

Anxiety has been pooling in his gut ever since he collapsed onto the ice, fists clenched tight and tears biting at his eyes and the knowledge that he’d _failed_ piercing and hot in his chest.

Victor seems unconcerned, seems at ease with the results and confident in Yuuri in a way that Yuuri can’t possibly begin to comprehend, because he’d touched down on that quad flip and forgot who he was skating for.

 _“We’ll get married when Yuuri wins gold,”_ Victor had said at dinner the night before, and now Yuuri has ruined _everything._

He looks at Victor, sitting across from him and smiling nervously, wearing the same bathrobe he’d tucked around Yuuri’s shoulders only twenty four hours earlier, and realizes he can’t condemn this man to another shameful season of coaching someone who’s failed him as miserably as Yuuri has.

He opens his mouth and says the worst thing he can imagine.

“After the finals...let’s end this.”

The failure of the day had hurt him, but Yuuri finds the pain of it is nothing compared to the feeling that sears through him when the happy light in Victor’s eyes flickers and dies out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Любимый - Lyubimyy - favorite  
> красавец - krasavets - beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> Google Translate tells me that Victor says the following:
> 
> ты мой Yuuri. Я не хочу чтобы они видели: you're my Yuuri. I don't want them to see.  
> Я желаю вам не будет идти туда, где я не могу следовать: I wish you wouldn't go where I can't follow.  
> Ты выглядишь так красиво в моей одежде: You look so beautiful in my clothes.  
> Я тебя люблю: I love you.
> 
> I have no idea if any of that is accurate. Honestly, I'm assuming it's not.
> 
> I'm on tumblr as kirkaut if you want to come berate me for my use of google translate, or watch me cry about yuuri and victor whenever i get the chance (which is always)


End file.
